‘I was on the first-ever series of The Traitors, the round tables could last up to 3 hours, and here’s how I rumbled one of the Traitors immediately’
Ivan Brett competed on The Traitors back in 2023, and admits contestants were actually worried BBC show had ‘failed’ until episode 4.
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The Traitors has just returned to our screens for a third series, with episode one of the Claudia Winkleman-fronted show drawing in a whopping 5 million viewers.
But with 25 new contestants having taken on the challenge for 2025, one familiar face from series one has given the complete low down on what they can expect, as well as what really happens behind the scenes.
Games master and author Ivan Brett, who took part in the first-ever UK series of the show, reveals in a new interview, in conjunction with Spin Genie’s AR Treasure Quest launch, that everything viewers see is ‘authentic’ and the steam train scene really is the first time everyone meets.
He reveals he managed to rumble Amanda Lovett as a Traitor ‘instantly’ after being picked out by Claudia after sitting next to her on the train for hours, and working out her ‘entire demeanor changed’.
Elsewhere, he says some of the round table scenes ‘lasted up to three hours’, and music was blasted in the room to help add to ‘tension’, while confirming things were ‘portrayed as they happened’ entirely.
He also speaks about the cast’s worries the show ‘failed’ after the first three episodes didn’t quite get the hype they were hoping, and it was episode four, where Ivan was voted out, that things started to really pick up.
Speaking in conjunction with Spin Genie’s AR Treasure Quest launch, Ivan Brett says: Continue reading below
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We see the contestants meet on camera for the first time on the steam train - is that the first time you actually met?
Yes it was. The most important thing the whole way through was keeping the authentic experience. There was a lot of effort kept in keeping us apart and making sure that when we were actually meeting the first time that was on camera.
The whole way through the experience, part of the trick is to make sure that you have all this energy and all this intensity, and everything that we do that interacts with each other is kept on. As soon as it's downtime, you're not really supposed to interact at all. In fact, you're encouraged not to because they want that kind of intensity of action to happen while the cameras are on.
A good example is, on the train carriage, we all sat there as people began to file on at different times. Then finally, you were told, right, you can talk. I was immediately there, and sat opposite Amanda, one of the Traitors from our series and I wanted to try to get an alliance with her. How can I figure out who she is?
I spent so long sitting opposite her on that first day, that when Claudia went around picking out who the Traitors were, I instantly knew that she was one, because I spent so much time sitting opposite her looking, and her entire demeanor changed, so that worked. I did not put anything about social reads in my own strategy, because I'm terrible at social reads, but I managed to get one by just talking to this one person for hours and hours on a time steam train.
How much time did you actually spend with each other during the day?
You do get to spend quite a lot of time together. It feels quite squeezed when you watch the episode, but the breakfast and the round table scenes last for hours. It's hard to measure time because they're quite intense but they do that.
You do get hours and hours together, which I think is really good. It means the game does play out naturally. Having said that, it is a live set. They're going to have to reset cameras, take down time, and have a break themselves. So there are definitely moments as well when you’re sort of told, ‘okay, the game's over, go away’, and everyone sits down somewhere else and is quiet for a bit.
Mostly it's very authentic during that time. Things were portrayed as they happened. We were never asked to retake anything, and we were never put in a room and told to speak to people or anything like that. There was no direction, so I really want to make that clear.
What was Claudia like off camera? Did you get to interact much?
Claudia was amazing, and she was so friendly. We didn't spend much time with her off camera, but every time she came down to do a scene with us or to do a mission with us, there's a lot of time you're not filming. If you're standing, you might get to chat with her. She was always having someone in her ear, but you could share a couple of chats with her.
I occasionally would make her laugh and feel so proud at the idea I could make Claudia Winkleman laugh. She also professed to being obsessed, and she would sit there watching the show live, almost like you'd watch the Big Brother stream. She knew us really well, she knew my name and knew everything about us.
She clearly was a real fan from the very start. She says the same, and would talk to us like she knew us. She was constantly trying to put people at ease, and I think you can see that in everything she does. She's such a people person, and it comes very naturally to her - we all adored her.
All the cast and crew were lovely, and there was a very strong welfare team who were looking after us. Claudia never gave off any divaishness at all, she was so happy to be there. She was playing a character, but she was loving that character she was playing.
You could just tell she was just loving life, and I think that made us all just feel so warmly towards her the whole time, and since the show, she's been equally supportive. She will absolutely message you or reply if you message her. She's very supportive of us as people, she's just great.
How long did scenes such as the breakfast and round table scenes go on for?
I don't wear a watch, and obviously you can’t have a phone, so I don't know. I remember someone saying one of the round tables lasted for three hours, not just the conversation, but the voting as well.
You sit there and wait a long time before it starts, and then they pump in some music to hype the tension!
When the show was finally on TV, how did you all deal with it?
The first three episodes came out, they weren't very successful. People forget this now because it's become so popular, but the first three episodes didn't really have that many viewers. They released it over three days, but it was that weekend, when everyone started watching it over the weekend and talking about Monday back after the weekend.
I remember Tuesday, episode four, that was the episode where everything happened with me. That was the greatest episode so far, and that's when everything went viral on Twitter, that was the big moment. That first week of the show, we were all like, ‘oh no, it's just another failed reality TV format’, and then it went crazy. Aaron was the first person to skyrocket on Instagram because he cried, during that round table with John and everyone felt sorry for him.
It helps that he's an incredibly sexy man. Then it happened to other people, Maddy and Wilf, who felt big bumps in their social presence. It was very intense, and for quite a short amount of time, we were celebrities now. But of course, most of us realised we'd go back to our normal lives very quickly.
Some of us within days, some of them, some of us within months, some of them within a couple of years. For me, it was very quick, a few days and being shouted out on the tube, and then a couple of weeks later, basically, life was normal again.
What was the process like immediately after you left? How did you get in touch with the other contestants?
I can't tell you exactly how the logistics work. But what I can say is, I was flown home before the series wrapped, so I did not experience the rest of the show. It was such a strange experience getting home and knowing it was still going on, thinking, they're probably having their breakfast right now, they must be in a round table, there must be six players left.
It was really weird. Some of us had managed to track each other down on social media and get hold of each other and start a group chat. We would welcome each person into the group chat. What happened next? What did we miss? And of course, as we got Alyssa on the group chat, she was then able to do this, because she was the first traitor out. So when we got Alyssa, we knew who the Traitors were.
They didn't get any other traitors until Amanda, about three episodes later, there was quite a big gap, that during that time I had experienced this really weird kind of car crash, feeling a change of pace. Things had been so crazy every day, it was so intense, the emotion, the exhaustion, and then suddenly I was home, doing nothing.
There was quite a gap between filming and the series being on TV, how did you guys all cope in the meantime?
Yeah it was crazy. As soon as the show was over and everyone was in the group chat, it was really intense. That group chat was, the kinds of WhatsApps you've got when you get back to it, you've been away for an hour, and there's 400 messages.
That was every single day. I didn't think at the time people were holding grudges. I think actually some of the grudges that people held kind of came back when watching the show. Between it filming and it coming out, it was a really happy family feeling.
Everyone loved everyone. We were just all in love with each other in this kind of amazing way. We had this secret, and no one else was talking about what happened, and we really expected, by that point, that it was going to be this big hit. What a really famous musician when they are sitting on an album and they haven't released it yet but can’t wait for the world to see it.
We obviously couldn't tell anyone else about it, and we were supposed to keep it totally secret, and we did, but we definitely hung out together. Some of us went to Centre Parcs together! It was only when the show started coming out, it became a lot more difficult to feel like we shared that secret, because the world knew about it.
