The Rest Is Entertainment - “It’s Not Just A Game” - Celeb Traitors Reaction (Episode 5)

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

Are the tasks becoming a production problem? Is Joanne in trouble? Which star needs to lighten up? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde discuss episode five of Celebrity Traitors, including headlines accusing Studio Lambert of ‘acting like human traffickers’. The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Sponsored by Lloyds. Learn how to avoid scams and protect yourself. See how Darkhorse Anti-Fraud Technology helps keep you safe from fraud. Search Lloyds protect yourself from fraud. 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 ⁠ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠ Video Editor: Adam Thornton & Louis Mealing Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Emma Jackson Exec Producer: Ami Bennett Filmed at ⁠www.westdigitalstudios.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Restors Entertainment, Celebrity Troters Reaction episode. I'm Marina Hyde. You sure are. I'm Richard Osmond. It's episode five. Yeah, we've just finished watching it. I'm sure you have as well. And we are ready to discuss in detail. We are.

There's a lot going on. Yeah. That's the beauty of this format. There's a lot going on. On the currents, over currents, all the currents. Yeah. We'll get to every current. We'll have to begin with a murder.

They did as you suggested. Called Rob. Yeah, they killed Rob, with James telling us that he was wrestling with his conscience, and it was somehow better to do it face to face. Yeah, anyway. I get it. I get it. But he also said, this is a classic chaos murder, which is good.

This is proper traitors talk. Rania doesn't want to be a traitor. It's absolutely right. It's a classic chaos murder, which is what you want at this stage. They all worked out that Leanne must have the key. Yeah. In retrospect, it's obvious. And in retrospect, you can see Rommish was saying,

Oh, actually, we shouldn't have given her the key because there's no way they would have gone for her. So again, and that was Maya who worked that out. So finally, we're getting some smarts from the traitors. Finally, we're getting them rowing the boat in the same direction. The faithful remain fixated on the rearview mirror. The one thing I'll say when they got rid of poor Rob. So you've got, James is there and Rob got let out. And in the edit, Rob is laughing and then they pull their hoods and then off they walk.

I would like to have a sweepstake on how long the chat between James and Rob was, I would say an absolute minimum 25 minutes. Just back and forth, back and forth, banter, getting Maya involved. I mean, it would have been absolutely nonstop. And then in the edit, you're just like Rob laughing and then let's put our cloaks up and off we walk. Release the supercar of the celebrity traitors. Yes. Release it.

Release that bit. Yeah. But, I mean, God, what a good sport, Rob Beckett is. He's fantastic, isn't he? Fantastic. And Rommish was so funny about him for the rest of this episode. They're almost funny or apart. Yes.

Some of the drive-by is super. We're super. We'll get to them. The Restors Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy, whose generation business backs, builds and manages renewable energy projects. On screen, though, the practicalities of sourcing power are slightly more negotiable. Certainly in scripts. I mean, my favourite energy source story, back to the future, of course,

they're supposed to have plutonium. They don't have plutonium. So they were like... Back in when they go back in time. When they go back, yeah. So they need to get 1.21 gigawatts. Which they get from the lightning strike, which they know is going to happen at 1004. Very very clever.

Monsters Inc. Now, you know where the power source is. Monsters Inc. Everything in Monstropolis is powered by children's screams, which is why they need to sort of harvest them. Yeah. May not work in real life. On screen, keeping the lights on does seem to require an unnecessary amount of drama. Now, Octopus Energy Generation has rather less need for a screenwriter.

It backs, builds and manages renewable energy projects with 5.7 gigawatts of capacity across its portfolio. Enough to power all the homes and businesses are Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester combined. A slightly more conventional approach to generating power. But okay, so then it was breakfast the next morning. Quite a scenery chewing entrance from Ross Kent. He really hammed it up. He doesn't know what else to do with scenery. No.

He's never seen a piece of scenery, didn't want to chew. But that's why he's such great television. But can I ask you something? Why are there suspicions? It is classic, faithful illogicality that there are any suspicions of Ross. There's no reason whatsoever for anything he's done. He actually makes a great case for it all later in the show. But there is no reason at all. An insanely high risk tactic to have nominated himself for both the grave digging and for this insanely high risk. For a man who's clearly living on his nerves at all times anyway. He's on his last nerve. He's been on his last nerve since episode one. the hat and I've been murdered in plain sight. I don't get the sense that he is forming friendships and alliances in there. I just don't get the sense that he is, but maybe we're not seeing it. But you don't have the sense that like...

He's part of a gang. Yeah, and that he's relaxing enough into it to do that. I don't think he's been able to because he is absolutely, you know, on red alert at all times. He's like the sort of first defence for nuclear submarines. He's like, he's constantly, he's the single most precise measurement there is of any sort of danger to himself. And I think probably in that environment, it's quite hard to relax. And if you're finding it hard to relax, probably hard to find friendship groups. But again, if you are Ross, you're right to be paranoid because even at that breakfast, Jerry is saying, I mean, he just keeps turning up everywhere.

Yeah. I think, and what do we read into that? And later on, they're having a discussion about Ross and someone saying, it's interesting. and he got chosen for both of those things. And I think it was Joanne, forgive me if it wasn't, who just said, yeah, that's a valid point. And I'll tell you now, it's many things. It is not a valid point.

Yeah, Miranda said he's unknowable. She's playing a great game, I have to say, the best so far. Well, not necessarily the best. Kenny Excellent will get to it. Yeah. But Miranda said he's unknowable. He gets angry at heat in the way that he might get angry at a wasp or something. He is too intense, I think, in a way.

because they're so, then any way faithfuls tend to not be very good. And if they've got nothing else, actually they regard all the signs that someone is faithful as traitor behavior. The exact opposite. He said at one point, and I had a great sympathy for him, he said,

they are using me like a donkey. I've just got that written down right here. They're using me like a donkey. It's like, and they are to be fair. He reminds me of a character in a Shakespeare play that sort of says, I am fortunes full and then exits the stage,

you know, like the fates are playing. with me. He really is. Yeah, I could see him definitely do Lear after this. Oh my God, he'd love to hear that. His lea would be quite something as well, so you'd bring all of this energy. They might have to split it over two nights because I don't know if my heart could take watching that. Or his. Yeah. You know, you would absolutely have to, you'd have to have that have to be a two interval lea. Whereas Kenny is clever and he said, let's see who's pushing what, Ross, because Kenny can see, Kenny, I can tell you something right now, let's not even leave it till the water.

Sharp episode after the series is finished. Kenny is going to do very well in life off this show. Incredibly well off the back of this. Whatever happens now, I can tell you that he is going to do well off the back of the show. Yeah, he's incredibly likable. He's playing the game very, very well. Everyone seems to enjoy his company, including viewers. Yeah, including viewers. This is like, this is the perfect launch pad. I mean, this he doesn't need a launch pad because he has fame in a very different fields. He's got a whole different audience. But in this audience, it's, he's being introduced to a lot of traitors' viewers for the very, very first time. Yeah, he is going to have one of the great showbiz-ven diagrams when this is done, isn't he?

The old and the new. Yeah, the old and the new. No, he's great. He's great. At some point, I'm going to look up what he does. But at the moment, I feel I don't need to because what he does, certainly at the start of this episode, is hunt traitors. That's all I need to know about King Kenny for now, and I like him. Yeah. The faithfuls are sort of obsessive, but they are also headless chickens. James Acaster rightly identified quite early on who they are. He said, this is a bunch of faithfuls that reads into everything, as he said when he did the chaos murder.

And then after breakfast, when they're chatting, Ramesh said, not only are we coming up with new theories, we are going back to some of the old ones, where we know the results. It was brilliant. Yeah, because they were going over Mahala again. It's like, yeah, but we know she was a faithful. We've done that.

And Julie, yeah, we know, honestly, we know. Yeah, let's talk about Joanne. As you know, I have a huge amount of time for her. What a breakout. Oh, she's brilliant. Don't put her in a box. She doesn't believe in the existence of boxes. No. Until she does believe in them.

And then she only believes in boxes. She is like, God bless her gut, which tells her some absolutely off-based things. The conversation with Bash was brilliant. She's like, she says, it's Ross, okay? He has not blinked since he's, but she's so funny. She has not blinked. She's been in here. She noticed the overperformance of breakfast.

She, I mean, it's almost too much this episode for reasons. that are obvious, given that they're headless, they could are not voting for her. But there is an element of Alan Carr where it's just like, I just think this is a person who cannot be put in a box. And it's just the nature of Joanne. Maybe she's just like, yeah, if certainly if Joanne or Jerry were to be traitors, you would think they'd be playing the Richard E. Grant role, but properly. Yes.

You know, which is, I'm absolutely going to jump in the middle of this, be crazy. And every single round table, I mean, she voted for Bash. You know what? Not a crazy thing to do. But, you know, I guess. I'm already wished to anoint a new phrase. It's so, Joanne. I mean, I've got a whole amount of time for her. Really want a night out with her. Yeah. I mean, when... Hit me up, Joanne. I want to go out with you. I just, she's just hysterical. When you're in a castle with Jerry Hall and you're the wild card. Yeah.

You know, that's quite some performance. She's being outflanked. Jerry Hall has been outflanked and wild cardness by her. But she's also got the memo of, you have to be entertaining. Yes. You know what? We're watching this as an answer. Of course it's a game show and this strategy going on.

It's also we're watching people locked up together, interacting with each other. Just as we said in the last series of celebrity traitors, you are a light entertainment booking. Sorry to have to spell it out for you, but you are being paid a lot of money for essentially, you know, less than two weeks work at the max. Yeah. And you are a light entertainment booking. You are not the former head of it. MI6. And if you are, that's a different role that you're playing there. What you are, absolutely, is showbiz Sally. Yes, you are. Right. Are we going to talk about the death parade mission?

Yeah. Yeah. Why not? I could have. A couple of format issues with it for me. It looked great. It looked great, but I could have lived without elements of it. Yeah. Tell me your format issues with it. Well, my format issues are this, which is, so you're either going to win the eight grand, that's what it's all about essentially. The absolute key to the format issues with it are if you watch it back, if you watch the cutaways of the death parade, which are filmed a long time afterwards, they're walking really quickly. If you see at any shot where the actual contestants or anything, they're walking really, really,

really slowly. In fact, they're walking at a pace at which it would be impossible for them to catch the traitors. Yeah. Because... You're doing it in a way that is... Like, I'm giving you my final warning. Yes. I don't make me

two and a half step incredibly slowly towards you anymore. Yeah. So it's an obvious one if they had failed that task. You know,

one of the parts of that task was half the people are going to be one bit of the castle for a while. Half the people are going to be the other bit of the castle and you hope to get a bit of business out of that. In the end, they didn't really.

They didn't maximize either half of that. Well, I presume nothing happened. I presume nothing happened that was newsworthy. And even so, I think it's probably only about an hour and a half that they were separated from each other. But if they had failed the task, they would all be in the same place. Yes.

And so there's absolutely no point to the task whatsoever. So as a producer, there's no point having that task unless it is succeeded because you split people into two. And as I say, it didn't, nothing really came of it. But that's the idea of that task is let's have six people here. Let's have the rest of people here. That will be an interesting dynamic, especially when, you know, there are people who are about to be banished. And what does this group think? What does this group think?

do we have factions? None of it happened, but that's what was planned to happen in that task. And so it was impossible, it was literally impossible to fail. The other thing I would note is the flame wall. And I would like to see in the production designer's drawings for this task how high that flame wall was. Because it had a strong element of the Stonehenge in spinal tap, didn't it? It had a strong element of three health and safety people, just absolutely overruling the producers at all points. Just saying, I have people in robes, I have supporting artists in rows, I have naked flame, and I have this task where you're saying, you don't know if they're going to catch them or not. And it might be, I mean, what if they'd light the fire at the last second

when they're almost on it? I've seen garden flat fire pits that are bigger than what they had, those three little buckets. Yeah, I felt for the producers there. Yeah, so did I. They really want this to be, oh. Yeah, they wanted to set the forest on fire. They want to do a Champions League final. Yeah, yeah. And which, by the way, I can never understand how those flames are allowed to be so close to the ground. But that's a sidebar. But yes, it was, it was, yeah, it's like when we did highboard diving on the games years ago, and we wanted them to go off the 10-meter board.

And the coach on the afternoon said, a couple of them were just going to have to dive in off the side. And we're like, oh, I don't know if that's going to be great television. Anyway, I felt for the producers in that moment. But, yeah, the whole task, it didn't do what it was designed to do. No, it didn't. But they don't always, but also the obviousness of they had to succeed was a little too obvious. Like if they had failed, they're all in that little cart for the next three hours together. I don't see it.

So, yeah, Maya, James and Hannah sort of self-sacrifice. Hannah accidentally. Well, she says accidentally, yeah. And then they were all in the car. And that gave Ramesh the chance to say to her in the cage to do a kind of pre-round table confrontation. There was a little bit. I mean, the thing is, she just kept rationalising it and throwing every bit of her brain at it. But even by that point, you were thinking, I feel I know where the show is going today.

Yeah, I would say this. As a traitor, I would have sacrificed myself. It's almost better to be out of the conversation on a day where you've just on a chaos murder. Probably for Hannah, she probably might have wanted to be in the bigger group. I don't think it would have saved her. But in some ways, you want to be, remember when... She would have wanted to be in the castle, wouldn't she? so she could sow

very a seed, any seed, rather than just being sat there and confronted by Romano. But often it's more useful to be just out of the way. Do you remember when Margaret Thatcher

resigned and the succession thing came on and John Major was away for two weeks ago because he'd had a dental operation? Yes. And the fact that he was not in the House of Commons meant he became our Prime Minister.

Yeah. And I would say that that's what... In the way that Theresa May when absent in the whole referendum campaign. Yeah. Emerged like a submarine at the end. Like, hi.

That task reminded me of that. It really reminded me. of a Tory party's succession battle. So we find ourselves very quickly, I would say, at that roundtable. Very quickly. There wasn't these two factions. We certainly saw almost nothing of the people who went back to the castle talking. They can't have said anything interesting.

What we did see was Maya in the diary room, which we still call the diary room, even though it was the wrong show, saying, I don't want to vote for Hannah, at which point you're like, oh, okay, so right, she's definitely, just like you did last time. Just like you did with Richard. I don't want to have to sacrifice Richard. So we knew she was doing it. Yeah, you had to. Well, you know, they're smart enough to know you had to reset the game.

You had to reset this game. And Hannah, you know, Bash again did for Hannah in that she came up with her explanation on the roundtable I thought was excellent. I thought really, I bought all of it. I thought she's, you know, absolutely saying the right thing. And Bash, as you've done previously, you just said, yeah, no, I absolutely buy all that. I find that convincing. I just interested that you didn't say it yesterday. Yeah.

I mean, that's the problem. Blash. So, Maya tries the opening gamut of like, why did they get rid of Rob, which is a bit of a one. Yeah. There's something though, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And Rommish is very funny saying, you know, yeah, he was good. You know, if you like that one-dimensional root one stuff.

Yeah, Jerry was saying he was so funny. They are funny, almost apart, but they're funny together. Joanne went over the top with her, Ross is always their theory. Yeah. That's not like Joanna. What I loved was he then. completely psyched her out with his very, very intense earnestness. And just to kind of make it stop with some kind of sympathy, she was like, yeah, no, no, it was

horrible. And I was like, what, but you weren't there? Oh, God, yeah, Joanne. Because she just wanted to make the earnestness stop. And, you know, which I really sympathise. But other people, that would have doomed to them. Yeah. Other people, if it said, yeah, it was horrible. And it still might.

It was horrible. With this lot, it still might. They're not going to vote for Joanne. they grab her anything and if they have if they have psychological meltdowns again we will get to it then they might

be clueless enough to it I hope they don't I don't think the access of smart faithfuls which in which I would include Miranda Michael I would have included Kenny but they may feel the need to

sacrifice her at some point for one reason I don't think I think you want to keep her in the castle and the same way they want to keep Rossin because you've really got the tasks you want to keep Joanne and because the one thing that every single contestant in this show knows, which sometimes in the regular show they don't know, is she is great television.

And the better television this is, the better it's going to be for them. Well, yes, but I wonder whether they're that clear-eyed anymore. But, okay. So James Bunn had a little bit of heat. It went away, didn't it? Yeah, very quickly. She was pushing James Blunt, and if she got back to the class, I think she would have pushed that one because it probably was the most of them. But in the end, in the event, she went for Jerry. Kenny versus Hannah, I mean, Kenny's logical deduction is so good and so calm.

He is not having any form of meltdown, nor is bash, that both of them are very clear-eyed still. They haven't got that kind of I'm paranoid about absolutely everything, which seems to have overtaken other people much quicker than you would expect. As you said, always, they started at the same level of paranoia that the others finished on. And those two have not been overtaken by that. Yeah. And again, in a classic sort of, with the producers hat on, they have to before those roundtables throw a little bit of light on, say, three different contestants. Sometimes they do it on two if they know it's going to be close. If it's three different contestants, they have to do it. They have to go, oh, I wonder if it will be James. They know when they're editing that bit, they know he's gone, of course, and they know how the roundtable went, and they know what the votes were, and they know it's an absolute walkover. So it's one of those things they didn't have a lot to play with

because I presume every conversation beforehand, every conversation was it has to be Hannah. And you can't, just for the viewers, you can't just put all of those conversations in because we want to enjoy the roundtable a little bit. But the round table was very short. The edit of it was very, very short. I don't know how long they gave them to talk.

What do you think they gave them to talk? It would have been a very, very short one because they would all have agreed. I mean, there's a reason that James and Meyer both voted for Hannah. Yeah. And that reason wasn't 100% evident from what we saw. That is interesting because James Blunt had far, far less heat on him than you would have imagined.

Yes. You would have thought it would have been good of Hannah being able to get back to the castle and not be in the cage. She could have maybe sewn that because that was where she was obviously going to go and she obviously voted for him. But if there had been any of it, it would have made it into that edit. My assumption is everyone I went back to the castle all sat around and said, we're definitely voting for Hannah, aren't we? and then enjoyed their afternoon snack. And you understand why that's not something you're going to edit into the show. But afterwards you can kind of go, oh, yeah, that must have been what happened.

But who didn't vote for Hannah? It was only, Joanne, who wasn't a wild card anyway, Ramesh, who hadn't been in that group. By the way, there's also a trick that always do. It's not random who they start with. They always try. And if it's going to be six all, that always start with the person where the last person that's a casting vote. if it is everyone is voting for Hannah they'll always try and start with something

that's a bit of a wildcard so they started with Rommis. Yes, they started Rommis who went for James Blunt Joanne went for Bash, I've just put three exclamation marks, I mean amazing. I mean, the producers looking at that so the producers in the gallery will have who everyone has voted for, they'll sit down

work out the order that makes the final reveal the most exciting. In a case like this, there isn't one. And if there isn't a final reveal that's exciting, they'll be like, oh, what's the first first reveal that at least might make viewers think, oh, hold on a minute. And that's rummish saying, James. You either have him first or second.

And they'll have looked at Joanne saying, Bash, and they'll be like, oh, what do we do with that? They've never, yeah. I mean, just let's enjoy it. Let's that moment sit. Yeah, yeah. They've never, in the UK version, in any of the celebrities or civilians, obviously, had two traitors out by episode five. Yeah, it's an issue.

It's an issue. Should we talk about that? After the break. We'll talk about what next for the traitors. We'll talk about my favorite subject, which is why vote off traitors. And we'll talk about what I think is going to be a big, big conversation, national conversation plot line going forward, which is the whole pastoral care, people's mental health of it. There's stuff in the papers, isn't there? There will, there is, and there'll be plenty more. So let's get that after the break. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Lloyd's. Now, let's talk about movie con artists. Who are your absolute favourites? Movies, TV and book, my answer is the same. And it's Tom Ripley.

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Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, welcome back, everybody. Let's just deal with the immediate aftermath of the roundtable. Joe Lysett issuing what in football is referred to as a Come and Get Me play. And yeah, that was quite, that is a play for sure. It's bold. It's bold.

It's a play, though. Yeah. And we mustn't forget that every play pretty much in this game backfires. Yes, I agree. It always does. And yeah, he, I think it will be problematic for him. I think it was, anything that seems over-exaggerated and nuts people become suspicious of. There's a really basic maths in traitors, which is, say there's 17 if you left,

if you are just one of 17, it's one of 17 chance that you might be a traitor, which might as well be zero. If you decide to do something, if you decide to, you know, if you're put forward for a task or you say, oh, come on, recruit me. There are two ways of taking it. Either A, that's obviously something a faithful would do, or B, oh, that's quite suspicious. That's something a traitor might do. You have just reduced your chances of staying in from one of the first. and 17 to one in two. You've given people a binary choice. You've told them something. And they may well say, oh no, but he wouldn't do that. But they're making a binary choice. And previously they're

making a whatever you call a one in 17 choice. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's style of football that where effectively, if you actually follow it through to its logical conclusion, having the ball is a risk. So it's better not to have it. Yeah. Just park the bus. Just, yeah, just have no possession. I'll tell you who's parking the bus, by the way, beautifully, Michael Sheen. Yeah. I mean, wow. I mean, he could get his HGV license. I mean, that is, he is doing, he's absolutely just straight bat, just not coming across very, very well, just not doing anything, not putting his head above the parapet. And we know he's deliberately doing it because he said, oh, I wonder if I, you know, went too far voicing any opinion at the last round table. So I thought that, you know, so we know he's consciously doing it as a strategy. And he's, by the way, when we talked about the comedians are able to use their comedy to not come up with a,

I think he can use his status. Yes. I think there's a status that he has in that game and that people are like, oh no, it's cool. Keep Michael in because we like being in a castle with Michael Sheen. Yeah. And I think he's been able to do that. And the other reaction, which was cute, is Miranda and Bash and Kenny

all skipping up and down the corridor saying we've got a traitor. Yes. Yeah. And by the way, don't celebrate because it is not a good thing to do. Yeah. You've got the ball now. Yeah. You just made your game much harder.

Yeah. What you've done is got rid of an absolute life. liability of a traitor who you knew was a traitor, and you're almost certainly going to have them replaced with a really, really good traitor, and your chances of winning have just gone down. I absolutely get why people are excited because that's the job they're sent in to do. So it's exciting when they do it. But actually in gameplay terms, it's the worst thing you can do. I was thinking as a thought experiment, if you go into that game, because we know the producers cut out, if you're too gameplay or you talk about the production process, that's no fun for anyone. So they would always cut that out. But if you start a conversation which says, so say all the people back at the castle had got together and said it's definitely Hannah, right, which feels like a conversation that was had. Well, the thing to do then is keep Hannah in. The thing to do is just go that we all know it. But I'd rather have Hannah there and we'll get rid of her with four people to go than get rid of her now and suddenly we're going to have the person who the traitors think is least likely for us to ever find out

and is going to be good at the game. That's the binary. And yet the suspicion of clever people within this format is so overridingly the kind of impulse that they cannot help but indulge. And so they feel like we must get rid of her because she is clever. We know she's traitor, but also she's clever and we're afraid of it. But imagine on that round table, if you just set and go, okay, Hannah, I definitely think it's you. Yeah. I'm no interest in getting rid of you now. So I do not want you to be replaced by someone who I don't know as a traitor. So I have this knowledge. They could have done that. But they, I, I I always think that just... But imagine. That was sort of ruin the game, I think. It would. Yeah. But luckily, that impulse to be afraid of clever people is so intense that it doesn't matter. Yeah.

But if you did it when there's like eight people left or something like that, there's definitely, if you had four of you and you knew for a fact that someone was a traitor, or you were so certain. Why not just say, okay, look, we're going to keep you in until there's just five of us left and then we're going to get rid of you. I wonder if you'd have to find a way of doing it covertly. I don't know. Yeah, maybe they could have been interesting. Well, then we got to the turret. Yes. Maya really is on our last nerve with James being on his last nerve

because she had to give him a talking to her and say, I really need somebody who wants to be a traitor, I can't do it on my own. Him openly admitting he can't do it. I know. I know. I know. I know it is. I know. But she said she'd be a great CEO because she said, we need someone to add structure. Yeah. It's hysterical. Exactly right.

Yeah. Somebody and she's like, she's been tottering since the very beginning of this game. And the suggestion of people who might add structure included Joanne. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kenny and Joe. Yeah.

Now, Joe is, because of the behaviour, actually, that is, you've got his rule himself out. I think so. And that's why I said is it a play, because is he playing to rule himself out? I don't know because they'll know that someone has been recruited. Yeah. And the fact that he wasn't recruited doesn't help him at all. No. They don't know he wasn't.

And so he's still, he's got, now got that binary 50, 50 instead of could have been anyone. It was a bizarre thing for him to do. Fun though. Fun, fun. Yeah, watchable. At least you understood. It was an entertainment booking thing to do. Exactly. And Kenny was the only real choice here. Yeah. And they made, I think pretty much every choice the traitors made in this episode was a good choice. They made a good choice to get rid of Rob. They made a good choice to self-sacrifice.

They made a good choice to join the kind of group behind Hannah. And they made a good choice in the person they recruited. The only thing I might have done differently. But there's two ways it's going to go on is I'm. might have murdered instead of recruited because... I wondered that. Well, they're going to let you recruit anyway at some point, right? They're not going to let two of you go through the game. They're certainly not going to let one of you go through the game. If nothing had changed between today and tomorrow, definitely murder and recruit tomorrow,

right? Just get rid of someone. Get rid of Michael. Just throw a proper grenade in there, you know? Michael would have been the one to get rid of for sure. Yeah, just something, you know, absolutely nuts. So the whole place was in absolute turmoil. Because they get in complete turmoil.

Yeah. And also that the faithful won't know for a fact that there was a recruitment. And then wait for a week in which there shields, there's something that you can hide a recruitment. Yeah. You know, wait, and they go, oh my God, they must have tried to kill so-and-so. They are way away from being that strategic, I have to say. Yes. They really are.

So at least they did the best thing that they could have done within their limited idea of what was possible to do. Yeah, Kenny is a, oh my God, that's a great booking. We've always said it's the strongest position in the game to be a very good, sort of faithful and then to be recruited late on. I actually think he's very, very good, but you'd ideally be recruited in episode seven for you to be in the most strong position. Yeah, for the next two turrets I would have murdered.

And then when there's a day when there's plausible denyability, i.e. three people have got shields, or whatever it is, you recruit, people don't know for a fact that you've recruited. and you absolutely get away with it and you're two days further down the show which you see your position is strengthened because the only reason I say that that I would murder instead of recruit

is there is no heat at all on James or Maya. They don't need to be defensive. And what's interesting is that with the faithfuls they, something, when you get two traitors, they've never discussed or we've certainly, it's never made it into the edit and I think it would have. Oh, look, twice now. there's been traitor on traitor.

They never talk about that thing, which is actually very telling. If you look at whose face looks the most rueful as they put that little Slater, or something, they've never discussed traitor on traitor, which is always one of the big conversational points. Yeah, I think it's slightly harder in this because both the traitors have been voted out, have not been voted out, you know, 11, 9 or something. No. They've both been fairly obvious ones. They've both been almost unanimous.

But you would think that you would say, did anyone notice anyone looking at? kind of, because that is at least evidence or however circumstantial, is that anyone who looked worse about this, you don't see them having those conversations at all. I think you would. I don't think they're doing it. And honestly, if you've got two traitors already, you should be thinking about. Well, the person who would be able to do that, of course, is Hannah. Yes. And she can no longer do it. Well, Miranda could do it, I believe. And we haven't seen that yet. A Miranda Bash Axis. If it was a Miranda Bash-Kenni Axis, if it was a Miranda-Bash-Kennie Axis, if it was a Miranda-Bash-Kennie Axis, that would have been very handy. But now is, and that may well play into the game, but unfortunately now it has a slight flaw, which is Kenny is a traitor.

Right, we're going to have to talk about the sort of mental toll, which is going to become a storyline, because you can tell the son, I've had a couple of stories about this. They've had James Acaster, and then they had a story today on Thursday saying, oh, one of the contestants really lost it with the producers and said,

I need to be able to call my family in between. And you're like human traffickers. Yes. Which is a very, very specific line. And someone, I think, has said that. It's difficult. Certainly, on the comedy kind of circuit of all, there's been so many comedians in this,

there's been a lot of rumours about, like, people sort of disquiet about how stressful people found it, what the toll on them was. So James Acosta's done an interview with The Times, talking about something else actually, but in the course of it, he does address the Tracer thing, and he said, people who watch the show say it's only a game, and that's good advice, not just the contestants, but also to the production staff. So, by the way, we know that this is going to become more and more part of the conversation

and the conversation around the game and the coverage of it. They don't, and what they're suffering from is that they don't have, they haven't had those kind of, oh my gosh, gasping moments where we know that someone's just betrayed someone or someone's just done something that you had with a great kind of comic engine like Alan Carr, who was also actually tactically brilliant and such a brilliant deflector and was able to kind of create those moments throughout the game because he just wasn't rumbled. And those kind of moments of funny misdirection or things where you're like, oh my gosh, you haven't at any point in five episodes of this show gone.

oh wow did you see that there's not been that kind of water cooler wow moment what there has been is a very significant level of kind of paranoia and nerves and we're going to get much more of that it's it's tricky yeah i think well i think a couple of things with with both of my hats on the the producer and and someone you know who could who could be in that castle i think you've got second series syndrome which is they all they all saw what happened in the first one they saw how enormous it was. And you can see that everyone was slightly more on red alert right from the beginning. You know, like you watch the first ever celebrity big brother and it's just like, it's like a holiday camp. And then it gets, you know, progressively worse. So they're in there. They know the

stakes and they know the stakes for careers, for all sorts of things. However famous you are in there, this show is actually bigger than pretty much anyone who's been in it. Because it's so huge, right? It's insanely huge. So there's a lot of stakes. It is a celebrity show, but it is made by a reality show production team and in a reality show production team, especially studio and Amber, who are absolutely best in the business, there are ways and means of making television. And this is the distinction I make. When James says it's just a game and the production team would do well to remember that, the thing is it's not just a game. It's a television show about a game. I could not agree more. And I am absolutely certain that they would have overstepped lines,

which the talent would rather, they hadn't overstepped, because their job is incredibly difficult. and the second, you need to keep things as tight as you possibly can. The schedule has to be incredibly tight. You cannot have people conversing with each other off camera or off mic. You just can't because then you're spoiling it for the viewers. You can't make the show. You have to have every single thing in your kit of parts to tell the story of what's happening. And you can't call your family because you've been told in the rubric of the show

before you go on it and before you sign the contract that that's part of the game. Yeah, I kind of think that's the one bit where I'm on the side of the, talent, which is absolutely sequester people. Absolutely, they can't talk to each other. I do think there's a world in which you can loosen up some of those rules a little bit. When you talk to people who are on it, if it was me, I absolutely understand as a producer, this is my baby. I want it to be a big hit. I'm delivering something for the BBC.

I'm delivering something for 10 million people rather than for 20 people. That I want everything as tight as possible. I don't want anything to go wrong. You've seen how many moving parts are in the show. It's crazy. But I would say. But I do think, I do think that, you know, you don't, listen, don't give, I mean. You got to toughen up.

I'm so sorry. You think? Yes, I do. Okay. It is like you're being paid 40 grand for like 10 days work or something. And you're doing it for disadvantaged people. So try and remember your chosen charity and like just push it down. I mean, really.

I, yeah. It's not, it's, I honestly think that you know what. it is, if you go into the game and you're like, you go into the game a game called traitors and you, you know, there is a chance that you might be made a traitor or there is a chance that you might, things might happen to you. You've seen the show. I appreciate the things are different once they are happening to you. But in the end, you're a grown up and you've got to get through it. And I really think that people. But this is because you went to boarding school. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I think you've got to toughen up, right? But were you, but were you,

down, man, come on. Were you that tough in your first 10 days? Yeah. You have to be. Yeah, that's shocked me. I think that the history of reality television tells us something, which is people are not themselves when they're put in those environments. And that's part of what the producers are doing.

You can't have people feeling buttoned up. So part of the job is to... But they must know this. There's knowing it and there's knowing it. You know, it's like when you watch Big Brother and you're like, oh God, that's a weird behavior. You think, yeah, that's because you haven't seen the other 23 hours and 30 minutes when they've just been sitting there. You know, there is a lot of waiting around on that show,

a lot of waiting around. These are people, pretty much everyone in that castle is at the top of their game and works consistently and works with different teams and has worked on loads and loads of different types of television, has seen how to treat people, how not to treat people. They will all understand, I think, they need to be sequestered. They all know what they've signed up for, which is, by the way, you are kind of locked away.

They, I think, legitimately at some points, might go, I think the rule that you were given me here is not benefiting your program. In fact, what it's actually doing is making a program worse because it's making me uncomfortable. And I know there's two or three other people who feel uncomfortable about it as well. So I wonder if that's something you could relax. Now, that's the absolute tight rope that... What is the actual rule that you can call your family with someone there? Civilians, you can't call anyone at all to civilians.

You know what I mean, the regular traitors. With this, you can call people, but that person has to be able to... you know, hear both sides of the conversation. And why would they do that, for example? Well, what if you both decide to bring the same person? And one person could tell that, what if someone's an intermediary? I mean, it's, but it's absolute belt and braces stuff. And if I was on that show, I would push back occasionally and just go, I don't think this is quite right. I think that it is much more important than I think perhaps some people in that place think it is, because it is not a game. it's a television program about a game where like with a football game you're not allowed to miss anything.

You can't have a bit in a football game where two people go off down the tunnel, you know, have a penalty against each other and then come back out. You have to show absolutely everything. And in the evenings when people are in hotel rooms next door to each other, you can't have them communicating because of course you're going to talk about the game. It's like juries they're not supposed to look up the trial. Yeah. You know, you have to just come back in the next day completely fresh. But I'm sure somewhere in between those two competing desires, lines have been stepped over on both sides. It's always going to be the case.

And I'm sure that it's something for a third series that will change. Lots more of it's going to come out. Lots more of it is going to come out. But it is, there's a reason why, you know, 15 million people are watching the show. Yeah. It's because it's a great game and it's brilliantly, brilliantly, brilliantly, brilliantly produced and brilliantly edited.

And if you have people absolutely at the top of their game and the production and editing, they are sometimes going to push you too far in what it is that they want because they're brilliant. I mean, it's just what they do. And if you are someone like James Acaster,

who's very, very smart and very, very bright, sometimes you're going to not see the point of that and sometimes also you're going to be right. But it's, you know, it's a juggernaut. It's a juggernaut that's really, really hard to make. It's a juggernaut where you have to give everything of yourself. And in between those two things, there's going to be tension. Of course there is.

And as someone with a production background, but also as someone thinking how I would feel if I was in that castle, I absolutely see both sides of that. But yeah, I do think we're going to hear more of that story going forward. And I suspect there'll be a few production changes for series three. Right. Well, we must consider that story developing. Yes. We will be back tomorrow to react to episode six.

I know because we weren't left on a cliffhanger for once. Yes. But that means it's going to be an absolute jam-packed episode. It's going to be jam-packed on Friday, which is good. All right, everybody. Thanks so much. This is great fun. That was great fun.

And we look forward to see what King Kenny gets up to tomorrow. See you tomorrow.