The Celebrity Traitors will return on 1 October, the BBC confirmed on Tuesday, alongside a new trailer showing the celebrity contestants meeting for the first time at the show's Scottish Highlands castle as host Claudia Winkleman declares: "The game is ON!"
The trailer shows the challenges growing bigger than ever, with a ship exploding into a dramatic fireball. The series will open with an extra-long first episode, and launch night will also bring a new bonus special.
Traitor or Faithful? Claudia Decides will be available from 9.15pm on 1 October on BBC iPlayer, giving viewers a look at how Winkleman chose her Traitors for the new series. The regular episodes will then air twice a week, on Thursday and Friday nights at 8pm.
Who is in the cast
Joining Winkleman in the Highlands are Amol Rajan, Bella Ramsey, James Acaster, James Blunt, Jerry Hall, Joanne McNally, Joe Lycett, Julie Hesmondhalgh, King Kenny and Leigh-Anne Pinnock.
Maya Jama, Michael Sheen, Miranda Hart, Myha'la, Professor Hannah Fry, Richard E. Grant, Rob Beckett, Romesh Ranganathan, Ross Kemp, Sebastian Croft and Sharon Rooney complete the line-up.
The celebrities are playing the game of detection, trust and betrayal in the hope of winning a cash prize of up to £100,000 for a charity of their choice. The official video podcast The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked will also return to BBC One, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, with host Ed Gamble joined by players who have been banished or murdered from the game.
Inside the new trailer
The trailer shows the players arriving at the castle in their cars before heading into a church to take their seats for the first task. Maya Jama quips to her fellow contestants: "If this is the last time we are all friends, then good luck!"
The footage then cuts to the first tense Round Table, where Winkleman tells the group: "I have chosen my Traitors. The game is on!" She adds: "There are now killers among you. People are out there to deceive. Fame won't save them."
Richard Osman's scrapped series claim
The announcement comes after Richard Osman, the author and television presenter, claimed earlier this month that an entire series of The Traitors was scrapped in one territory after an unbroadcastable conversation meant filming could not continue.
Osman, 55, said on a podcast with host Jack Dean that he was "probably not allowed" to share the details, before doing so anyway. When Dean asked whether producers "just lost the whole thing," Osman replied: "Yeah!"
He went on to say he considered the first Australian series of The Traitors the best ever made, calling it "the single most frustrating series of Traitors" because it featured a Traitor who was "so obviously a Traitor" surrounded by Faithfuls who were "so easily led," while the sharper players were quickly voted out.
Osman also said he would not take part in the celebrity version of the show unless he could play as a Traitor. "I would only want to do it as a Traitor and you can't insist," he said, adding that he could not stand not knowing who the Traitors were or "having an inkling that no-one else agrees with." He said being a Traitor would at least give him some control from the start of the game and let him be present for all of the filming, joking that he liked the idea of filming in the turret with a cup of tea between takes.
What the show is
The Traitors is the BBC's adaptation of the Dutch format De Verraders, in which contestants are split into Traitors and Faithfuls and must detect, or successfully hide, who is secretly working to eliminate the others before the group votes them out at the Round Table. Claudia Winkleman, also known for hosting Strictly Come Dancing spin-off shows, has fronted the format since it launched in the UK.
