I don’t know about you, but I can’t in good conscience say that I’d given much thought, over the years, to what I would say, in a freezing cold chapel on Celebrity Traitors in the middle of the night, hundreds of miles from my family, when confronted by two cloaked killers hell-bent on my eradication, demanded that I plea for my life.
So when the moment came, I clearly wasn’t up to the task.
I tried to buy myself time, asking James Acaster to go first. Bad move, Amol. Maya and Richard – or Withnail, as I foolishly called him, in homage to his legendary turn in the title role as a drunk bohemian in the 1987 film Withnail and I – were obviously persuaded by James’s argument.
Maybe I should have prepared better. But it’s not every day you get murdered by Traitors in a Scottish House of God.
It was hell, by the way. Richard and Maya were utterly stone-faced and deadly serious when they took off those cloaks. I actually thought the Traitor who turned out to be Richard was King Kenny, the brilliant YouTuber. Richard, who has a rather imposing visage at the best of times, just stared and stared and stared at me. He relished the moment of murder.
I wonder if his Lord of Chaos routine will survive the first Round Table tonight.
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I only ask because one thing I had prepared for was that Round Table. Believe it or not, my tactic was going to be to stay quiet. But if asked, this is what I would have said, as a Faithful.
‘Guys, I’m nominating Richard. He leaves me – us – with no choice. This is a game of information, and our task is to accumulate information as the game progresses. This early on, we have very little information – except for one thing. When asked if he was a Traitor, Richard said… he is a Traitor. That might have been a slip. It’s the best information we have. Oh and I think we win both ways. If we vote for him and he’s a Traitor, that’s great. But if it turns out he’s a Faithful, he’s not shown himself to be particularly reliable. I vote we banish the Lord of Chaos!’
Alas, the Lord of Chaos had already sent me to a shallow grave.
But here’s a devilish thought.
I obviously wanted, desperately, to be a Traitor. It would have just been, well, amazing. To be asked onto the greatest TV show in modern history is the Golden Ticket. To be a Traitor?! Well, that would be the Deluxe Golden Ticket. And I actually think that, had I been chosen as a Traitor by Claudia, I might have struggled. Living a lie just isn’t something I’m used to doing.
But if I’d been recruited by Richard and Maya, I actually think I would have been a great Traitor, mainly because I’d already spent a day as a Faithful. I had actually inhabited the mind of a Faithful. So if I’d been recruited, I would have told myself,’ as you were, Amol, as you were… just carry on playing like you did yesterday’. And I wonder if, relishing the role of Traitor, I’d have done a very naughty thing.
I wonder if, had I been recruited as a Traitor by Maya and Richard, and had Richard been getting a huge amount of heat at the Round Table, I would actually voted to banish him. Traitor on Traitor!
I know, I know, it would have been high risk. I couldn’t have known if we’d be allowed to recruit another Traitor, and it would be very high risk going from three killers to just two. I would also have had to convince Maya that she could trust me – despite my killing our fellow Traitor! My argument to her would have simply been, “Look, Richard was going out anyway – and this way nobody is going to suspect me. That makes us both stronger!”.
Ah well. The best laid plans and all that. I never got to that Round Table, so couldn’t play out my strategies either as a Faithful or as a recruited Traitor. I fear I fell victim to two factors: first, the sheer eccentricity of the Lord of Chaos; second, the fact that, on the Celebrity version of the show, your reputation walks into the room 10 minutes before you do.
I was cast as the journalist who asks hard questions. That made me a target – and the Lord of Chaos wanted me removed.
To the extent that any strategy can work, trying to lie low at the beginning is surely the way. Several players – Bash, Sharon, Leigh-Anne, Bella, Kenny – seemed to be rather quiet in that first episode.
If only I’d taken my own advice, remembered to shut up – and kept the Lord of Chaos onside.
Amol Rajan is host of The Amol Rajan Connection on YouTube, Amazon, Spotify and Apple. Sign up for his free weekly newsletter at amolrajanconnection.com
Celebrity Traitors continues tonight on BBC One and iPlayer at 8pm.