Celebrity Traitors star David Olusoga says there was one major flaw in the faithful’s gameplay, and that was having “too much fun”.
The first UK celebrity series of the popular reality show has been a ratings hit since its launch a month ago, wrapping up with a tense finale on Thursday night.
NB. This article contains spoilers related to the final episode
Speaking to Sky News’ Anna Jones and Kamali Melbourne on the new Mornings with Jones and Melbourne, Olusoga said: “We were brilliant at the tasks and every day we went out and did what were basically bonding exercises.
“We all really got to know each other, and then we were terrible at the round table because we just liked each other too much.”
The 55-year-old historian says it was a “devilishly difficult game,” admitting he would have been a “terrible” traitor because he “wasn’t very good as a faithful”.
Treacherous Alan Carr was crowned the winner of the show, after a nail-biting roundtable which saw fellow traitor Cat Burns banished, followed by faithful Joe Marler.
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The celebrities proved to be the worst in the show’s UK history at rooting out the traitors, a fact not lost on Olusoga: “For the most part, it was people sort of not being very good to pointing fingers at each other”.
Respected for his intellect and insight, Olusoga says the show has left him questioning his skill set: “I learned the limits of my kind of my approach to logic, which made a lot of sense to me but didn’t really get me very far.”
Despite many viewers feeling Carr let slip plenty of clues that he was a traitor, Olusoga says he never once suspected him.
Olusoga says: “It was like a double bluff. It was somebody who wasn’t trying to disguise that they were a traitor, therefore, it seemed logical that they weren’t a traitor…
“I think, of all the people, Alan probably got the fewest votes in the entire show. The other thing is, Alan is a national treasure. He’s innately likeable. I think none of us really wanted to believe Alan was a traitor because he had us laughing, we were in stitches the whole time.”
Despite his lack of competitive success on the show, he says it’s an experience he relished.
“It’s very easy to get stuck in your own ruts as an adult, so to be plucked out of your world, to have your phone taken away from you, to be put in this entirely new environment – this amazing, surreal environment, with these amazing people – it was like the first week of university again. It was like starting a new school. That was wonderful.”
Previously a fan of the show, he says being a player was a completely different ballgame: “You really haven’t got a clue… you see patterns in the clouds”.
He also has no regrets about his decision to get involved: “I’ve been asked to do a lot of different shows. And I’ve always said no to all of them. But even before doing it, my view was, Traitors is special”.
Olusoga is currently working on a Remembrance project with Findmypast to archive pictures of fallen soldiers in the First World War.
