The Traitors promised a lot but it is no Squid Game, more like Damp Squib

NEARLY six episodes into BBC1’s new parlour game The Traitors, things started to look up when Claudia Winkleman announced some of the contestants were going to be “buried alive” in Scotland.

Great, I thought, we can end this farce before the World Cup quarter-finals begin.

But then, just as I was mentally piling up the bodies and kettle chips, Claudia offered them an escape route and distress signal.

“If you’re underground and can’t take it,” said the host: “Shout ‘HAGGIS’ and we’ll get you out.”

Yeah. Haggis!

On account of them being in Scotland.

A minor act of condescension which wouldn’t have bothered even a prickly little customer like me maybe ten years ago.

But this is the BBC, now the wokest and most hypocritical broadcaster on Earth, and you know as well as I do that, had they filmed this series in the West Indies, there’d be as much chance of the contest-ants shouting “Jerk chicken!” as there would Lady Susan Hussey presenting the next five series and partnering Johannes Radebe on next year’s Strictly.

Vanish meekly

As it stands, I reckon the Beeb will be lucky to get one more run out of The Traitors which, much like the Maastricht Treaty and the Vengaboys, originated in The Netherlands, where it was known as De Verraders.

The format here is un-changed. 22 contestants are competing for a carefully worded prize fund of “up to £120,000” in a glorified game of blink murder at Ardross Castle, Easter Ross, with three Traitors, Wilfred, Andrea and Alyssa, trying to bump off all 19 “Faithfuls” before they get rumbled.

Although, before sending expectations through the roof, I should add no one literally gets murdered.

They just get a very formally worded letter and vanish meekly into the night.

Squid Game, this is not, which you may be forgiven for thinking is a bit of a shame, as the BBC has assembled a truly diverse and inclusive bunch of twats, who can broadly be divided into two categories.

About half of them are estate agents while the rest seem to exist on the outer fringes of showbusiness, like Molly, who once played “a woman without a womb on Casualty”, Blankety Blank contestant Meryl, comedian Hannah and “actor/presenter” Alex, who turns out to be the girlfriend of fellow faithful Tom, who’s more famous than any of us could possibly have imagined.

For he is not just “an amazing magician”.

Oh no. Tom is “one of the top magic creators in the world”.

Not to mention one of its most significant bellends.

The others quickly tired of his rampant egomania, of course, and voted to banish him without there being any significant improvement in the mood or content of a show where, three nights a week, we have a variation of the same shouting match.

“You’re a Traitor.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

And on and on it goes, until someone, usually one of the blokes, breaks down in tears and storms off in a huff.

It’s no sort of spectator sport or threat to the World Cup, obviously, so the production team have added prize fund- boosting games, which would be fine if they were simple and fun. But they’re not.

They’re weird, labyrinthine affairs involving sheep, graves and crowns and panic-stricken contestants who run hither and thither until Claudia declares someone the winner or one of them shouts: “What the f*** is going on?” I wish I could tell them, but I genuinely have no idea what the f* is going on.

Like you, though, I can tell that The Traitors has borrowed random bits from The Crystal Maze, The Apprentice, I’m A Celeb, The Mole and Big Brother, another Dutch invention, which I always thought would be the death of Channel 4.

What I never realised was that it would also drag down the BBC, who are dumbing down before our very eyes with an import where not one single part of the show functions as well as it should.

That includes, by the way, the host, who should be giving her mysterious role the full Scottish Widows treatment.

Instead we’ve got the kookily, daffily miscast Claudia, who made it clear she fancied one of the Faithfuls called Matt and was so playfully upset when he was “murdered” she clasped his picture to her lower abdomen and announced: “I will place him near where I keep my eggs.”

Unexpected morons in bagging area

LIGHTNING, Zoe Lyons: “Which former Labour Shadow Chancellor appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2016?”

Charley: “Michael Ball.”

The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “George and Andrew were the first names of which chart-topping pop duo?”

Chante: “Jedward.”

Zoe Lyons: “The RSPB is a royal society that works for the protection of which animals?

Jack: “Rabbits.”

BEST quiz show answer of the week. The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “According to the title of a 2007 novel, what did Lisbeth Salander kick?”

Alex: “The bucket.”

Bradley: “The Hornets’ Nest.”

Great sporting insights

ENI ALUKO: “Richarlison’s got 19 goals in 40 appearances. You do the math. It’s one goal a game.”

Mick Beale: “We need to improve our cup form which we improved by winning the cup.”

Joe Cole: “The one thing Mbappe’s got is acceleration, physicality, technique and mindset.”

Ruby's rocky roll...

OVER in the Rocky Mountains, Emily Atack arrived in Aspen for the second episode of BBC2’s Trailblazers travelogue, with the bold declaration: “This is Insta boner territory.”

Or it was, until she appeared with Ruby Wax and Mel B.

Now it’s Flaccidville, Colorado.

I sense a prolonged headache coming on as well, because Ruby, like several other multi-millionaire presenters (see Brian Cox on How The Other Half Live) has got a bee in her bonnet about money, greed, the hollowness of the American dream and whinge whinge whinge.

It’s a form of self-loathing, obviously, and the extent to which Ruby actually hates money could probably best be gauged by the fact that she claimed she’d be quite prepared to live at a non-binary artist’s retreat in the middle of the Utah desert, provided: “It was a little bit more upmarket.”

But if you thought that hypocrisy was as bad as it would get, I have bad news.

Next stop was Durango to watch some native Americans perform an Earth Day bear dance with the aid of a wooden instrument and an explanation from Ruby: “It’s a growler. And if you rub your growler enough, it makes the sound of a bear.”

Grizzly.

GREAT TV lies of the week: Harry & Meghan, Meghan: “I wasn’t trying to find that great indie film that would get me an Oscar, no. I just wanted to volunteer.”

Planet Sex, Cara Delevingne: “I’m a loose willow tree blowing in the wind of gender.” (Woman.)

And The Last Leg, Josh Widdicombe (dressed as Noddy Holder): “Can I just say, this is the lowest moment of my career?”

No, because that was all three series of Josh.

Cara's sexpressive bore fest

BIGGEST challenge you face watching BBC3’s Planet Sex With Cara Delevingne?

Aside from staying awake, it’s trying to salvage some meaning from Cara’s words after you’ve dismissed her woke idiocies and pseudo-scientific guff, ignored all the posh-girl affectations and tried pressing your mental “delete delete delete” button on the most insanely annoying verbal tic known to man.

Which went into overdrive when the gullible bint rocked up at a “women’s masturba- tion class” in New York.

Verbatim: “Like, I’ve only once, like, really spent an hour, like, really, like, making love to myself, like, touching myself, like, touching, like, every part of my body and I, like, cried.”

So, you didn’t like it then?

Lookalike of the week

HIS week’s winner is Andy Bell, from Erasure, on I Can See Your Voice, and chef Antony Worrall Thompson.

Sent in first by Tony Shepherd, Motherwell.