The Rest Is Entertainment - CELEBRITY TRAITORS: First Episode Reaction (Free Bonus Episode)

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

***FREE BONUS EPISODE REACTING TO EPISODE ONE OF CELEBRITY TRAITORS*** Is this the best series yet? Have producers selected the right Traitors? Who is going to get killed first? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde review the first episode of The Celebrity Traitors. Is this the best series yet? Have producers selected the right Traitors? Who is going to get killed first? Like this episode? Sign up to our club to gain access to 50 bonus episodes, ad-free listening and much, much more... Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at ⁠therestisentertainment.com ⁠ The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Requires relevant Sky TV and third party subscription(s). Broadband recommended min speed: 30 mbps. 18+. UK, CI, IoM only. To find out more and for full terms and conditions please visit Sky.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at Sky. Now, whether it's Scorsese and De Niro, Brits and a queue, or Glenn Powell and a slow-motion entrance into frame, some things are just better together. And Sky and Netflix do just that. Two heavyweight storytellers side by side on the Sky Essential TV package for just £15 a month, all in one place and on one bill. Call it the full ensemble. Sky Originals bringing gangs of London and the Day of the Jackal. Netflix delivering global obsessions like Squidgame and Wednesday. Sky Atlantic, Discovery Plus and more than 90 other channels to that list, and you've got the kind

of line-up that bends the week around it, turning ordinary evenings into events. Sky and Netflix together for £15 a month. Premium shows, endless choice and a line-up that feels complete, all in one place. Visit sky.com to start requires relevant SkyTV and third-party subscriptions. Sky Essential TV includes a selection of Sky channels, 18 plus UK Channel Islands, and Ireland of Man only. Hello and welcome to this bonus episode of The Resters Entertainment, a special bonus episode. I think I can say, Richard. I'm Marina Hyde.

And I'm Richard Osmond, and we have just watched it, as I hope you have as well, the first episode of Celebrity Traitors. If you have not watched it, please put down your podcast. Do not listen to this because there will be spoilers. This is for people who've just watched it. It's going to go off. Oh, it is going to go off. I've got to say that did not disappoint. No.

I loved it so much. Let us begin. the cast, fine you've read the list of the cast but when you see it you just think my god this is bizarre reality TV once people regarded for washed up drags this is the most prestige format

currently on British television it's pretty a list it's in terms of like you've heard of basically everybody and if you haven't there's a couple you're like oh I see why they're on and also they're all genuinely excited to be there and not in that normal reality show way oh my god I can't believe we're here this is so exciting

They're genuinely, oh my God, we are in the castle. This is going to be absolutely awesome. The celebrity nature of it is totally crucial. That's what really struck me. We're watching a totally different version of the show now, as we discussed. Which is why it really, really works. It works to have a celebrity version of this and a regular version because there are different dynamics of play.

The main one being, obviously, they all know each other or of each other to varying degrees. And you can be pretty sure they've Googled if they don't. There's such a cute bit when Stephen Fry says to Nico Omalana and, of course, you're the guy who does the pranks. Nico's going, you've heard of me. And he goes, yeah, no, he knew you were going to be on. The other thing you notice about it is, which is sort of funny and quite excruciating at moments, is that it's far more performative because I found that almost the bigger these stars were, the more annoying they were. That's the spirit.

There was some incredibly lovish bits at the start. You realize it's that they're probably just really, really nervous. Which you so rarely see. But they're all out of their comfort zones because it's one thing being, you know, it being your show, this isn't their show. They are in a group. They're not the star. They're just one of a group. It's not their stage anymore.

And it's very, it's surprisingly, I found discombobulating. People who you think of are so poised because, you know, you've watched like Jonathan Ross a million times like boss the whole of everything for decades. And suddenly you're like, oh, you're like, oh, you're. you're just a guy getting out of a car with a lot of other people. And it's very, I found it quite compelling. It's very democratising. Yeah. No, I mean, Ingrid said instantly, she said, it's fascinating.

They are all in a position where they don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. And they have so rarely been in that position in the recent times of there. Because you do become that. Because you're in control of your brand and who you are and you work with people that you trust. And suddenly you're like, well, I trust this brand. I trust the traders. I know I love this.

But suddenly, I have no idea. what is going to happen. Well, that's what we talked about before when we found out it was happening and we talked about that months ago. We said, this runs the risk, despite being everybody's favourite show, et cetera, it runs the risk of being very, very exposing.

And there's something so kind of tempting about being in that castle if you're a massive fan of the show. And you almost think some people wouldn't have thought it through enough because everybody's got a screen persona. Everybody, and a broadcast persona or YouTube persona or whatever it is

but you can't have that when you're in this ensemble and your reputation is always precarious in reality TV and I think because people think the creators is so classy and you don't have to talk about your personal life because you're always just talking about the game which distinguishes it from a lot of reality TV formats is that people aren't talking, they deliberately edit out stuff

that they're always talking about the game and the machinations and who might be on that that's why it works and you know whereas in Big Brother they've got these kind of acres of time where they're talking about relationships in the past that got wrong or, you know, when I was fired from this or that. There's none of that here. They're talking about the game always.

Yeah. Let's go straight in and talk about who the three traitors are. Again, if you have not watched it, we're about to give the big spoiler. So I predicted the three traitors would be Jonathan, Kat, and Celia. I was just thinking I had my producers head on, but it's not. It's Jonathan, Kat, and Alan. and I have got to say, in terms of, we'll talk about Captain Jonathan in a moment,

in terms of value, Alan just, you're just straight in because he absolutely loses his mind immediately, which is so wonderful. He cannot, even before he's chosen as a traitor, he's almost in pieces. Well, this is why the celebrity version of the game is different, because all civilians playing that game now, anyone, and in the version that we're going to see after Christmas, now realize that the strongest position in the game, well, apart from, being recruited as a traitor later on in the game is to be a traitor because you're controlling the game, whereas celebrities want to be loved to some extent. So all of them should have said, of course I want to be a traitor because I understand that I want to control the game.

But a lot of them did. The one thing about if you are in the world of television, you sort of understand a format. You understand what is happening here. The money's going to go to charity. You want it to go to your charity if you possibly can. And the key thing about being, if you're a television presenter, we just talked about the thing of lack of control, is if you are a traitor, you are on television more. Like Nigel Farage said when he's on, I'm a celebrity. If you get picked for the tasks, you get more screen time. More importantly, is you feel like you've got more control over your environment.

You know, I always thought the reason I would find the difficult is if I was a faithful and I'm lying in my distant bunk miles away from the castle at 11 p.m. at night, I know that three people are filming up in the turret with Claudia and someone... And you're not one of them. Someone's making them a cup of tea and they're having a laugh. And they are, and whatever twist is about to happen, they know what it is. And so they have much more of an element of control over the show. It lose your mind.

You get one out of sleep. I couldn't do it. I could, I absolutely. I would, honestly, I would say kill me now. Give me on a lot. It's kind of the game. Yeah. Murder me instantly.

I want to go home. If you are a traitor, you are sort of part of the production team. You know, you are, which is what a presenter wants to be. A presenter wants to be part of the production team. The presenter wants to know what's happening tomorrow. The second Jonathan Ross was up in that turret. He was so much more like the old... I've got to watch Jonathan Ross push a horse up a hill.

He's having a meltdown. All of the times I saw Jonathan Ross. I almost couldn't look at him because I was embarrassed because he wasn't the Jonathan Ross I knew. Once, he's in the tie. He's like, okay, I've got more control over there. So I'm, you know... But having to deal with the chaos of Alan Carl,

which was incredibly good family. And the lovely thing is you know the two of them are old pals as well. So there's history of their... But I loved, I mean, Cat Burns. Amazing. Sorry, I know the music, but I don't know enough about her. She's one knows ones that everyone, which is actually one of the other perfect positions. Great bit of casting.

Yeah, it's a great bit of casting. The second I saw her pre-interview before she'd even been selected, I was like, oh my God, they've got to pick her. She's so sort of coolly impressive. And she, despite Jonathan Ross becoming a producer, she was almost like the most producer of all. That's not actually an adjective, of all of them. Producorial? of all of all of them I live my life

saying okay but you've got to calm down to Alan Carr just having to just sort of I mean she was really impressive I'll be interested to see what happens with her so she yeah she she is a great traitor I think Jonathan might be a bad traitor because he said but you know

the one thing about it that's going to play out interestingly I think is in the normal traitors you work out the status after a store week or so people kind of find their places And, you know, at the first, perhaps the older people are the ones with the highest status. And then, perhaps then the people who are good at the tasks have the highest status. In this, we instantly know what the status is.

Every single, the one thing you know about every single celebrity that has ever lived is they know exactly where they stand in the ecosystem of celebrity. You know, each and every one of them could take all 19 names, rank them in order of the most famous to the least famous. And those lists would be almost identical. from all of them. So you go in knowing that. And that gives you two different things. Immediately it means there's two groups of people I think it's hard to murder straight away. They're really famous people because everyone there is a TV producer, really. And they're going, do I really want to get rid of Stephen Fry? I don't really want to get rid of one of the biggest names there. I keep him in. They also know who is at the bottom of that status list. And they go, we can't get rid of those people immediately.

that feels like bullying. So you really only have a choice of about seven or eight people in the middle of that list. The people who are famous enough. All of which is such weak gameplay. They're celebrities. They're conditioned to play the game weekly, which I love. It's much more watchable. But they'll be conditioned to play it weekly for about three days.

And after like three or four murders, you know, and I've talked to various people who are in it. And everyone, no one will tell me anything. But they all said it is unbelievable how quickly you start just playing a game. Does it get like the Stamford Prison Experiment? One of those greats. Fingers crossed. Yeah, there is that. And also, because it's going to last a shorter amount of time,

I think the pace, again, will be quite claustrophobic and it will pick up quickly. Because as you say, in the civilian version, that might take sort of a week of stuff, but it will come quicker in this for definite. But this idea is, so we don't know who the first person to be murdered is. So we can all make predictions on that. It might be slightly random because, of course, Alan has to physically touch somebody. So it might be someone who's just in front of him at any given time. But I love Kat and Jonathan just saying, no one will, Jonathan's like, if I touch someone's face, it'll be creepy.

Cat Burns going, I mean, I never touch anyone. I'd like touching people at the best of times. I'm certainly not going to be doing that. And they're saying to Alan, I mean, Alan, of course you would touch someone's face. But to his credit, he knew immediately that it had to be in. Yeah, he was like, you know what? God, I do have to do it. So he has got to wander around that house, find somebody to touch. I think that's a gender neutral thing.

I think Alan couldn't. She was totally appalled at how loud he was talking about it. It was amazing. He was, but, you know. He is an absolute liability. There's nothing better than the early days of the traitors having an absolute liability as a traitor. And especially when it's Alan Carr. Yeah.

And as I say, you're used to him being in control of stuff and in charge of something to see him genuinely unravel. And because he's a comic, he unravels in a very, very funny way. At the very start of the next episode, which is tomorrow, he is going to get rid of somebody that can be very interesting to know who. I don't think it would be any of the really high status ones. I don't think it would be any of the lower status, the younger ones, essentially, by lower status.

That's what I mean, the people who are, you know, more on the nursery slopes. So it's got to be. up and caresses Stephen Fry's cheek I will cry with laughter but it won't happen I enjoyed Nick being better at all the brain puzzles and the quizzes about Shakespeare than Stephen Fry

but doing it in such a low key way of course See Nick is a Nick Muhammad If people just know him from Ted Lesser or something Nick Muhammad is a genuine genius So when I used to go see his Mr Swallow shows and he would do like maths puzzles and stuff and genuinely do them and do these incredible feats

And yeah if I'm doing something there when, you know, there's one of those sly things. You just have to say to everyone, everybody, sit down, let Nick do it. He said at one point, this is an awful lot easier if it's just one person doing it. And he's the politest man in the whole world. He's just saying, and by the way, he started the whole thing by digging Sedia's grey for her, if you know what I mean. You just said, honestly, it's going to be easier if you just let me. You should have let him do the Shakespeare one as well.

Oh, yes. Let's talk about Claire boarding. You know I love Claire. I love Claire was my house captain at school and then we all voted for her to be a head girl and we all loved her and that's how long I've loved Claire. She was not my house captain at school.

No. I do live quite near Claire. Yeah. And she is. She's the dream. I'm going to say one of the greatest human beings. She's absolutely hilarious. She is a delight in every way.

And also it's exactly the sort of person and go, no, I'll put it in the answer, don't worry. I can do that, I can do that. And the mistake that she made, the mortification. I can't bear it. I could not bear it. We had to look away. We were like,

It was awful. Because she and Tom Daly, sports people, had organized themselves, had organized everyone so well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Tom Daly's one to watch. So people who put the heads above the parapet,

I don't think it matters so much for this murder that's about to happen because there's a randomness to it. I think if there were a murder happening, okay, should I murder Claire? So Claire's put her head above the parapet by making that mistake, which could be seen as deliberate. We know it's not, but it could be. So you think, oh, great, we'll get rid of Claire. of course, if you're a traitor, you're thinking, oh, no, the faithfuls will get rid of

Claire, let's let them do that. We get rid of an absolute wild card. So if they were doing it normally, I mean, if you got rid of Joe Wilkinson, everyone would be like, what's happening there? What have they done? It throws everybody for an absolute loop. The thing about having to touch someone's face, it takes all of that out of the equation. So it has a randomness.

I genuinely don't think he's about to touch. touch Stephen Fry's face. I genuinely don't think he's about to touch, you know, Nico O'Melana's face. He seems lovely, by the way. Nico O'Melana. I can't see anyone at that they've cast well. There's no one you think, oh good, they put someone deliberately annoying and they've gone, no, no, we love this show. We're going to put in people who love this show and who people are going to love as well. I will say this, I think we can predict it's going to be an amazing series and there's going to be twists and turns. And we know that these first three traitors are not going to end up being the

three traitors because that's never the case. I mean, it'd be very hard to sort of run the whole show, go the whole way through as a traitor, doable, but hard. So as you say, it's going to be someone who's recruited a later point who's probably already proved for a fact that they're faithful. And, you know... It's possible for her to do it, for Kat to do it, if she has obviously the chops for it.

But purely because she has the chops for it and she comes across, funny enough, she comes across in an incredibly non-celebrity way. Yeah. If I can... Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds like a sort of generalisation. You know, like, is a truly selfless good deed possible?

It is a brilliant celebrity game player possible. Yeah. It's hard to see it. I mean, the other people I love, I love Celia, of course. I haven't worked with her recently. And Celia said, as you say this in real life, she said, my thing is everyone thinks I'm lovely, and I'm just not. But she says it in such a lovely way with such a lovely face. Everyone's going, oh, but come on.

So she's the sort of person, if you... Joe Marla, I thought was terrific. Joe is great. He doesn't look about. But there's more going on there, and people might underestimate that. Yes, I think so. But if he were ever recruited, I think he'd be... I think he might go to pieces if he was recruited.

Do you actually? I think that he might. I think he has a real sense of justice in his soul, Joe. And I think he might find it quite hard to be recruited. But we know that a few of them will be recruited. And, you know, if you recruited Celia, for example, then, you know, if you recruited Nick, he needs to hide the fact that he's incredibly smart. He's probably the smartest person there

in terms of just, you know, human nature and stuff. Hey, our stable mate, David Olashogar's just been on. He's not bad, is he? Yeah. Again, people will, people might not be so familiar with what he does. Yeah. Because it's not such an obvious celebrity thing. He might adopt that kind of father figure.

Yeah, a bunch of people. There's always what, they have them every year in all that did the civilian series and so he could take that role of people thinking you're an authority figure once Stephen Fry has gone to pieces and been voted out, I'm joking.

Yes, because I felt like Stephen doesn't quite have the personality to be farther to the house, neither does Jonathan. So when you go down the list, who's the next? Mark Bonner does he have the thing, but then David Aldoushaga, isn't it?

I just want to say I love Mark Bonner. It's not to do with the point about traitors. I love you, Mark Bonner. But what if he's about to have his face touched? Oh my God, I can't bear it. He's in that group of eight in the middle. I think that's at risk. I would say that.

Is there anyone we missed out? Because I just want to make sure that we've covered everyone. Ruth, I loved. Lucy Beaumont didn't do much in that episode. So you sense that, listen, this is just the editor in me, that maybe she's not going because we haven't, you know, you would have seen a bit more of her if she was the person who was going to go. It's like when you watch.

Charlotte Church puts her back into things. Charlotte Church does it. Oh, Charlotte Church. Yeah. I mean, what if, yeah. God, you could see Alan touching Charlotte Church's face. She'd be such good value at the round tables, I'm afraid. Oh, my God.

But that's the problem. There's nobody here. You think, oh, great, there's some dead wood here. Just get rid of a person X. All of these people, I want to see what they do. Oh, no, Charlotte Church is a really good call. She's got the most potential to say exactly what she thinks at a round table. Yes.

In quite a non-celebrity way, which is really what you want, because you just want people losing their minds. And also, by the way, Celia will do that. Yeah. And Celia, because, again, she looks like... She'll always have control. See, I don't know if she will, because Celia, it always looks like butter wouldn't melt. I'll tell you now for a fact, it would melt. I mean, it really, really would.

And if she wants to be mischievous, then she will be mischievous. So I hope that she sticks around for a wide as well. But genuinely, I thought, what an absolute treat. It was everything I wanted it to be. This is a series. You know how, like, when it's James Bond and you've got all the trainers or Marvel and the actual... physical trainers go on the interview circuit as well. Can we find out some more about the drivers?

It is a beautiful piece of drive. I mean, neither of us drive. No. So I'm so impressed. I'm assuming that's difficult. I'm assuming what they do is very difficult. How are they driving through that portico? Sorry, can the Land Rover drivers be put on the circuit? Because I think that, no, but they did, it's a lovely piece of driving. But it all makes it, it's so camp. And obviously, her outfits, the stylist, there's so many bits of cross. Yes, we haven't even mentioned Claudia. Yeah, but we, but all the things that people used to just sort of think were part of television are so foregrounded in that show, like the craft of the games and the sort of stunts of it, the cinematography, you can always call it that because it is so sweeping,

the stylist, which, I mean, no one used to talk about stylus for television, you know, all of this sort of stuff, it really does foreground lots and lots of craft jobs. Because the game at heart is so simple. Yeah. And so it's, and you have enormous noise. Of course, it's flawed. I wonder what the twist, they'll have a new twist. they'll have a new twist that we haven't seen before in the final stages of that

that won't be the ones that we've had in previous series and the other thing that struck me which is and weirdly it's something that you get from crime fiction as well if you're writing crime fiction the thing you have to do is hide your clues right so you have to hide that you've given away the solution you have to hide where it is and crime fiction readers are very smart at spotting when something's slightly out of place and it's very easy if you can write a joke people don't notice because they're laughing and they go,

I understand why that's in there because I tell the joke. Same in this is if you want to do these very serious conversations about but are you a traitor and you would say this, if you are funny, if you can do a joke, you can immediately block out any line of questioning you want to do. So I think if you're a comic, say if Joe Wilkinson was a traitor, he'd be a great traitor halfway through,

he would find ways of, you could ask him something and even if he realizes he's about to be caught out in a lie, which happens a lot. he would work out that he could say something funny and the conversation moves on I loved it I hope we can do as it goes on a couple more of these and certainly before the final one

are we going to be unable to control ourselves we're going to have to do more of these it's just nice to be able to talk about it straight off to watching it it's not really a news item but let's keep doing it yeah yeah let's keep doing thank you so much for listening everybody thank you to our members if you are not a member this is a free one and if anything we do on

Celebrators will make free because I think it's a big show, so that's not going behind a paywall. But if you do want to join, there's loads and loads of fun deep dives into famous shows, famous films, like great stories, lots and lots of great stuff in the archive. You get access to ad free listening and all that kind of stuff as well. Go to the rest of the entertainment.com if you want to join. But thank you for listening to this one. We'll see everyone for our regular question and answers edition tomorrow. We'll have calmed down by then. We will have calmed down.

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