About 10 million TV viewers in the UK – and a fair few in these little islands – are in the midst of a six-day fret-fest over who will yawn first – a model-turned-actress from Texas or an actor-turned-gangland-infiltrator from East London.
Such are the increasingly absurd machinations of Celebrity Traitors (BBC One), in which production decisions have repercussions both predictable and unforeseen, that we find ourselves wondering about the strategic consequences of three people skipping down a hallway, or of one person being so empathetic that they accidentally reveal they were somewhere they weren’t, or – as in the cliffhanger ending of episode six – of two people trying to get someone else to yawn before midnight without making it too obvious what they’re up to.
Otherwise trusted Maya Jama and James Acaster appeared to be laying it on very thick as the time ticked away, while Ross Kemp appeared to be growing suspicious. He and Jerry Hall both have plenty of experience as actors but he certainly seemed the more inclined to smell a rat while watching their unconvincing performances.
Perhaps, we were left to think, if Ross goes and yawns, the traitors might escape detection following their ‘murder in plain sight’. That would be my guess.
But if the tall Texan obliges with her own oscitation, the confronter of international criminals might finally transform from the ‘faithful most afraid of his own shadow’ to a suddenly serious player in the game.
Meanwhile, the newly recruited third traitor was rather conveniently obliged to slip away from the scene of the crime and seems to be in the safest position.
I have to admit I’d never heard of ‘King’ Kenny Ojuederie before this series began. I had, however, heard quite a bit about the Beta Squad to which the 29-year-old boxer and YouTuber belongs. If I hear both of my children crying with laughter while looking at the same screen, it’s usually while watching their videos.
These, I’m told, feature games of deceit and cunning not entirely dissimilar to the Traitors format, which is why Stephen Fry began the first series of the celebrity version already suspicious of Kenny’s Beta Squad companion Niko Omilana – they’re well practised in the art of deception. And canny, too. And obsessive game-players.
It was Kenny who pounced on the one flaw in Hannah Fry’s account of what had passed between her and Myha’la in a crypt, when they were tactically tussling over a shield. And it was, memorably, Kenny who laughed maniacally to camera when talking privately about his recruitment to the turret.
‘Now we’re seeing the real Kenny,’ was my daughter’s gleeful comment as an exhilarating fifth episode concluded.
My son predicted this recruitment earlier in the episode and later explained how editing choices had enabled him to work it out.
‘In shots, they were putting the focus on him in the frame, when there were people saying way more interesting things out of frame in reaction moments,’ John told me.
‘So something was off. And then with Hannah gone, I had a gut feeling they were going to recruit again and the edit had been done with that recruit in mind, so it was going to be Kenny.’
And with that recruitment confirmed, my daughter was predicting his ultimate victory in the game as a whole.
‘I think he’ll probably win,’ Eve said.
‘Because he was recruited, lots of people already trust him, like Miranda [Hart]. I think it’s good because we’re going to see the real him now he’s a traitor. I hope he wins.’
Well, he’s off to a good start, with Joe Lycett pleading to be recruited in a way that invited his own banishment. Even if the faithful didn’t think he was a traitor, they had to get rid of him on the grounds that he could only otherwise be an untrustworthy faithful. And of course, the other always-present reason to vote for someone’s banishment – they’re not you.
We still have another few days of impatient waiting to endure before the yawnathon concludes. It’s a longer wait than for previous series, when it was on our screens on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. But I welcome the reduction to two nights a week – I’ve got other commitments!
Does it mean, however, that the series will end in fewer episodes overall, such that they’ve decided to string them out over more weeks? And if that’s the case, does that mean murder and banishment all the way, with no more recruitments?
The bigger gap does leave us hanging on that cliff an awfully long time, though.
Time enough to start thinking random thoughts such as whether the entertaining but contagious bouts of yawning on Friday night led to any anomalous electricity-usage data, as 10 million viewers concluded it had been quite a day and retired early.
The absurdity and mistrust will continue on Thursday at 8pm, and I’ll be there for it, continuing with my sofa-based vox pops.
Just don’t fall asleep in the first five minutes and miss the fun.
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