This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
I suspect eateries and pubs might be having an unseasonal downturn this month, particularly on Thursdays and Fridays. When The Celebrity Traitors kicked off on 1 October, nine million of us watched it. If it carries on like that all month, that’s a lot of people staying in every Thursday and Friday.
It has proved a hit with all ages, including the tough younger age bracket with almost every person aged between 16 and 34 in the UK, who was watching TV at the time (83.5 per cent), tuned in. That’s 1.6 million young people engaging with BBC One.
The person responsible for this juggernaut – as part of the wider team at Studio Lambert, he’s very keen to stress – is producer Stephen Lambert. And he’s pretty pleased with masterminding something so popular, thanks to a brilliant format and an inspired cast offering old school stars (Michael Sheen, Jerry Hall, Richard E Grant) alongside ones who are down with the kids (Myha’la, Maya Jama, Richard E Grant).
“The show has universal appeal,” he says. “It has established itself as ‘Appointment to View TV’.” Ah, the holy watercooler show. Easy to aim for; vanishingly rare to achieve. “It’s very difficult to get people to watch programmes, and there is a huge joy coming up with something that a very large amount of people watch.”
As you read this, we’ll be heading into weeks three and four and we’re all heavily invested in the show and its stars. We’ve discussed Richard E Grant and THAT moment, we know how Jerry Hall doesn’t like being buried alive, and how paranoid Ross Kemp is. We’ve ordered a pair of Claudia’s tartan trews. So, just how did Lambert snare so many big names?
“Casting was simple. We didn’t need to tempt people onto the show with the promise of being alongside a huge star,” he says. As you did last year by inviting Stephen Fry on first and then going public on it? “The fact that so many famous people did it last year meant they all wanted to do it this year.” With that in mind, who would he really like to get on a (highly likely) third series? “Tom Cruise, maybe. And we would like to have a big sports star. But if they are an active one, they have commitments.”
What are the main differences between The Celebrity Traitors and the normal version? “Audiences already know most, if not all of the celebrities, which is different from having to get to know a cast of civilians,” he says. “With civilians, we don’t know the relationships, so you can do things like bring on a mother and son unbeknownst to everyone else.
“Also, the prize money means much more. The stakes are much higher. It’s also exciting to find people who haven’t been on television before.” Indeed. I have to say (but not to Lambert), that I slightly despaired when the ubiquitous Romesh Ranganathan turned up.
But whether it’s celebs or “civilians” sitting at the round table the nation is hooked. So what does Lambert think is the key to that? “Dramatic irony,” he says. “It’s the engine of The Traitors. It’s about the pleasure that we know more than the protagonists – we know who is lying. And its fun to try and watch people work out who the liars are.”
Plus, it’s a pleasure watching stars, and not only ones called Michael, lose their ‘sheen’ a little, isn’t it? “Yes, celebrities find it uncomfortable because they have so little control,” he agrees. “It’s such an immersive game that people get caught up in it, and show how they really are. It’s very revealing of character, and celebrities care, a lot, how they come across.”
The Traitors’ audiences are so huge that its budgets are more akin to that of a flashy drama, meaning Lambert can splash out on special effects, such as an exploding pirate ship. Just one episode is estimated to cost around £1 million, which is almost double the cost of a normal reality show. Lambert’s reported budget for the US version of Celebrity Traitors, which he makes alongside the UK one, is even punchier: about $2 million per episode. Shot in the same Scottish castle, with Alan Cumming presenting, it was launched before the civilian version in America.
“It’s such a crowded market in America, we needed the celeb version first, in order to wave the flag,” he says. “But the decision to give us the budgets, which allow production values akin to drama is a very exciting thing for those of us making the programme. It’s a big risk for the buyers, since there’s no script. They are flying in the dark. That’s why you have to have a fantastic team of people to find the cast, as the cast is both actor and writer. The players have to come up with the words themselves.”
Speaking of choice words – what was Lambert’s reaction to Richard E Grant’s early clanger, revealing he was a Traitor? “Jaw dropping,” says Lambert, laughing. Who would Lambert be himself, should he be cast in the show? “Oh, a Traitor, absolutely!”
How does he respond to those viewers – and there will be some – who complain that peak time TV schedules are full of reality shows, and what about ‘serious’ TV shows, such as arts programmes and investigative documentaries? After all Lambert himself used to be very much at home with these rare beasts, having cut his teeth in the 1980s and ’90s at the BBC on august titles such as Inside Story and Modern Times. His view is that things have changed.
“It’s almost impossible to get people to watch documentaries now. If you are enthusiastic about history or the arts, you can still find these programmes. It just will be more of a search and not as mainstream as the days when you might have, say, Omnibus [the BBC’s original flagship arts programme] on BBC One and four million people would watch it.”
Studio Lambert is unlikely to return to such quiet backwaters. It is surfing the reality wave. Indeed, it’s a genre synonymous with the boss. Remember Faking It? Wife Swap? Not to mention Gogglebox, Squid Game: The Challenge and Race across the World – all from Studio Lambert.
Perhaps people grumbling about the proliferation of reality TV shows should grasp that they are the social documentaries of our times; Lambert’s ones in particular are not only classy, but they triumph in holding up a quietly devastating mirror to British society. “Class is endlessly fascinating, and there is a lot of drama that can come from formats that tease out different values,” he says. “But an interest in social diversity doesn’t have to play on difference. One of the charms of Gogglebox is that it includes a socially mixed cast, but when you watch it, you feel rather good about humanity.”
Back to The Celebrity Traitors, and Lambert has good news for those dreading the end of this national event. Get ready for The Traitors – Acts of Betrayal, a stage show coming into London (at the Gillian Lynne Theatre), next May. How on earth is that going to work? “It’s all about how scripts can do what the unscripted cannot,” says Lambert. “We will have five different plays, with different versions of who is a Traitor and who a Faithful. Nick Mohammed is hosting. Each week, five entirely different plays will run, and then every Saturday, the audience chooses who is going to be a Traitor.”
I politely remind Lambert that theatre is a very different animal to the BBC. “Yes, it’s a wholly mad idea, and nobody has done it before,” he admits. “But London is a huge centre for theatre. And this show is profound and entertaining.”
Well, that’s been a winning formula so far – and based on past experience, you would be a fool to bet against Stephen Lambert.
Celebrity Traitors continues Thursday and Friday at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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