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She broke wind and broke the internet. Last week on The Celebrity Traitors, the gothic drama of the creepy cabin mission was interrupted by an audible parp. “What just happened?” asked host Claudia Winkleman, struggling to keep her composure. “I just farted,” said actor Celia Imrie sweetly. “I’m so sorry. It’s nerves – but I always own up.”
All around her, fellow famous types dissolved into fits of laughter. It was immediately hailed as a contender for TV moment of the year. Take note, Bafta, if you’re not too busy holding your nose. Deadline magazine reported that the viral scene “put some wind in the sails of the show’s ratings”.
At a time when doom merchants are sounding the death knell for traditional channels, talking point programmes such as The Celebrity Traitors might help save terrestrial TV. Powered by Imrie’s gas, viewing figures have risen to nearly 7m live and 11.7m in total, making the current contest an even bigger hit than the three “civilian” series. Half of all Britons watching TV at 9pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays are glued to the goings-on at Ardross Castle. And it’s two residents in particular about whom everyone is talking.
Traitor Alan and Faithful Celia are locked in a battle to be the reality game’s undisputed MVP. Sure, there are deadlier Traitors (see quiet assassin Cat Burns) and more effective Faithful (see the two Joes), but it’s Carr and Imrie who are truly box office.
Comedian Carr came out of the gate first, hogging the spotlight in early episodes. When he felt the shoulder-tap from Winkleman to anoint him as a Traitor, our bespectacled cult hero flew into a panic. “I have a sweating problem and can’t keep a secret,” he wailed, immediately dubbing himself “the new Linda”. Tasked with murdering in plain sight, he came over all a-fluster.
“It’s such a stretch for my acting skills,” he said. “I don’t know how Meryl Streep does it.” As he gabbled nervously, glugged rosé and gave unsubtle winks, it was highly relatable. Carr was behaving exactly how many of us would if asked to commit televised subterfuge. As one social media wag noted, it’s like your favourite wine o’clock auntie was suddenly moonlighting for MI5.
Since coldly betraying his real-life pal Paloma Faith, Carr has grown into his treacherous role. He slyly covered his tracks with a heartfelt eulogy at Faith’s graveside and a string of pot-stirring fibs. He’s now writing death order scrolls with relish, chuckling: “I’ve got a taste for it now.” When the Faithful bemoaned the “murder” of Tom Daley, he shrugged: “Deal with it.” “Alan has become a killing machine,” said co-conspirator Jonathan Ross approvingly.
That green velvet cloak becomes him. As Richard Osman said last week on The Rest Is Entertainment: “Alan’s like an accountant who’s accidentally been made head of a mafia family. Everyone goes, ‘He’s not going to be able to handle the violence’, and within a year, he’s killed everyone.”
Even in the midst of his murder spree, quick-witted Carr is hilarious value. When Daley threw shade at Kate Garraway for using the word “flabbergasted”, Carr told him: “You can’t call someone a Traitor just because they have a better vocabulary than you.” When Ross wore a leopard-print cardigan, Carr asked if he’d come dressed as the Flintstones and muttered: “Yabba-dabba-don’t.” He said of scatty Garraway: “If Kate doesn’t come down for breakfast, people will just assume she’s gone into a broom cupboard by mistake.” During the forest wailing mission, he said of one throaty banshee: “She needs to suck on a Fisherman’s Friend.”
This one-man meme machine has already spawned his own merch. After a “Carr crash” start to his stint in the Traitors’ conclave, the wild card comedian has miraculously dodged suspicion, using his impish humour and main character charisma to turn the tide in his favour. Giggly, gossipy Alan simply couldn’t be guilty … Could he? Carr has seen his odds to win slashed. He’s now among the bookies’ favourite to triumph.
Meanwhile, Imrie is winning hearts and minds as the castle’s eccentric elder stateswoman. The faultless comic timing of her flatulence aside, she’s a total hoot. When her team had to wail down a woodland well for the latest mission, Imrie’s deranged shrieks went on for longer than was comfortable, reducing her castmates to hysterics.
She dropped an arcane reference to “putting the pussy in”, to be met with blank looks all round. Imrie somehow kept a straight face while explaining that she was quoting nursery rhyme Ding Dong Bell. Back at the castle, she decided to conduct some amateur investigations, proudly announcing: “I’m going to snoop and listen in to other people’s conversations.” “You know you’re not meant to tell people when you’re snooping?” pointed out Carr.
The pair have already become soulmates and sparring partners. While playing badminton in the castle grounds, Carr called out: “Celia, we need a bit of wind to get the shuttlecock over the net.” “Oh shut up,” she retorted, faux-crossly. At the normally po-faced Round Table showdowns, they keep giving each other the giggles, which pricks the tension perfectly.
Gloriously unfiltered and mischievous, the 73-year-old makes for mesmeric viewing. If Carr is ascending towards national treasure status, stage and screen veteran Imrie is already there. On the same episode of The Rest Is Entertainment, Marina Hyde told Osman that Thursday Murder Club star Imrie was an object lesson in not underestimating older people. “She’s a walking marketing campaign for the world you’ve created,” said Hyde.
Other players have had their moments – Nick Mohammed with his puzzle mastery, Daley with his graveside side eye, Ruth Codd with her anti-Ross rants (“Don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining”) – but Carr and Imrie have been the most consistently fun.
The unlikely sleuthing duo of rugby player Joe Marler and comedian Joe Wilkinson recently hatched their “big dog theory”, speculating that Ross and Stephen Fry are the two alpha stars. They posited that one will be de facto leader of the Faithfuls and the other of the Traitors, pitted against each other in a VIP death match. Combined with the growing suspicion around Ross, it means that Carr could soon become top dog in the turret. At which point all bets would be off.
Against all odds, the Spexy Beast and the Pooper Snooper are the comedy double act the nation didn’t know it needed. If Carr chose to recruit Imrie to the dark side, it would be pure TV gold. A total gas, you might say.
