How ruthless is King Kenny on Celebrity Traitors? This is the single most pressing question in our national conversation right now.
He seemed destined to be an all-time great as a Faithful. I wonder if he’s destined to be an all-time great as a Traitor, too, especially with the double-vote power of the dagger.
I have a theory on that, but before I get there, a word on the reach of the show. During half-term, a lot of kids who would usually spend daytimes in school have been out and about. I’ve bumped into what feels like hundreds of them. And from my anecdotal experience, roughly 99.8% of the country’s teenagers are obsessed – and I mean obsessed – with this series.
If I ever get asked for a selfie, which is rarely, it’s usually either the over-40s who watch University Challenge and listen to Radio 4, or the students who aspire to be in the former. With Traitors on, I’ve been deluged with requests from young people – and I was in a single episode.
I can only imagine what it’s like for those who went further into the game. It’s a reminder, frankly, of a very 20th-century experience: a single television show uniting all generations and geographies.
What will they see in the final episodes? Mainly, the consequences of exhaustion, I would suggest. It really is hard to overstate how emotionally exhausting it is being in this show. Obviously this is a very first-world problem; but by the time players get to this stage, the immersive and all-consuming nature of the game has left many of them knackered.
A reminder: when you’re in the game, it’s not a game; it’s your whole world. A long way from home, in a super intense and surreal alternative reality.
That intensity includes coming under fire at the roundtable. I never got to experience this, but I’ve heard – and not just from this series – how full-on and hard that can be. You feel the weight of these powerful minds accusing you, often of being something you’re not.
To me, the real surprise is not how the tension has started to spill out, but rather, how little tension there has been thus far.
As a viewer, you’re hooked on both the plot and the characters. But you have to bear in mind that what you’re seeing is a brilliant, skilful edit of countless hours of footage. This is not to say there is misrepresentation; for what it’s worth, I think this has been a superbly told story.
I’m bamboozled at the suggestion that Joanne McNally is anything other than a lovely, kind player. Joanne? McNally?! Come on. Aside from being the funniest woman I know, she was the absolute height of niceness on and off camera. I think her snapping back at Miranda after the floorboard theory, and when Miranda Hart was a Faithful, suggested to some she was a mean girl when she really isn’t.
And what of Kenny? His alliance with Maya Jama is obviously very powerful, but I have a theory: he’s too nice to be an unfaithful Traitor.
The Kenny I got to know, and have been WhatsApping with, is fiercely competitive, yes; but he’s a sweet guy who knows that, being television, this is a popularity contest, not 12 rounds in the ring. He’s too smart to come across as nasty on television.
In being considered the most trustworthy contestants, despite being Traitors, Maya, Kenny and James Acaster have shown themselves to be phenomenal players, and got an outdoor turret to celebrate.
In getting this far, and being this crucial to the future of the greatest show on television, the likes of Sebastian ‘Bash’ Croft, Romesh Ranganathan, Sharon Rooney, Joanne, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, James Blunt and Michael Sheen have already shown admirable skill at the game themselves.
As to the eventual winner of the game? It could be any one of them. But I do know who the only loser was. It was the guy who stepped into a coffin in episode one – and never got out. I hear he’s still trapped in there.
I have been thinking, while watching the show, how much I would have loved to be recruited on that fateful night in the Chapel, what my tactics would have been; and how I’d have been similar, or different, to James.
Ah well. Perhaps they’ll resurrect the ghosts of series past at some point. Until then, I’ll give huge and heartfelt thanks for being part of this very special programme, above all to the team who made it; and of course to you, the readers of Metro, for reading these humble columns.
Celebrity Traitors airs on Thursday and Friday night at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.