By the time you read this, The Celebrity Traitors finale will have concluded. Ten episodes of cloaks, candlelit round tables, murders in plain sight and people lying to each other’s faces in a Highland castle.
I tried to keep up with watching the episodes whilst staying at our holiday home in Central Portugal. Watching The Traitors in the sunshine, with citrus fruits on the trees and olives growing in the garden, feels very different from watching it on an island that already has its own Traitor—an island with a castle, gargoyles, towers and lamplights.
The more I watched, the more I thought Lundy could actually host The Traitors. We already have most of the ingredients. In fact, the producers could probably save themselves quite a lot of money on set design and maybe even players!
The original Traitor
We have a castle, which is already associated with a Traitor! The castle on Lundy is linked to William de Marisco, who held the island in the thirteenth century. He turned Lundy into a base for piracy and was accused of plotting the murder of a royal messenger. Lundy, conveniently, also had its own knights in the form of the Knights Templar. The Templars were given the island, but the de Marisco family refused to surrender it.
William de Marisco was eventually caught and executed in London as a traitor. The pub on Lundy is named after him, which seems slightly ironic. Imagine being remembered as a traitor and then, several hundred years later, having a pub where people can gather to discuss and strategise.
We also have Hangman’s Hill, which sounds almost as though it was put there specifically for a Traitors episode. I can imagine the production team would be very excited when they found this location on the map.
The Table
The Traitors has its famous round table, where everyone can see each other and discuss. Our Traitors table in the Marisco Tavern isn’t round, but it’s still a place to gather and discuss strategy, even if it is a card game!
The island has its own intelligence network: people notice things, remember things, and talk to one another. Information travels surprisingly quickly across a small island.
The Turret
The top of the church tower is a great place to figure out which faithfuls to banish. If you have been into the tower and squeezed through the tiny door at the top, you will know that up amongst the Ravens, gargoyles and grotesques, conspiratorial behaviour happens.
During helicopter season, the tower also gives you a good view of who is arriving and who is leaving. The cast of The Traitors arrive in gleaming Range Rovers. Ours are Land Rovers, with character, and they are rarely gleaming.
Lights out
The castle in The Traitors has its candles and shadows to create the atmosphere. Lundy has generators, and with the Power going off every night, the Traitors can go about their business unseen, though on Lundy you only have to venture a few steps beyond the village to find yourself in darkness anyway.
Where would the murders be?
If Claudia ever decided to relocate The Traitors to Lundy, there would be plenty of atmospheric locations to choose to host the task. The lighthouse with its burial ground would be an obvious contender, as would the cellar at Millcombe or the Quarries and the Fog Battery could also provide plenty of suitably mysterious corners.
On Lundy, people notice things. If you suddenly start taking walks you don’t normally take, someone will notice. If you disappear for an hour, someone might wonder where you’ve gone. If you are seen having a whispered conversation behind a building, someone else has probably already seen you.
By breakfast, the entire island would probably have a theory. It might be completely wrong, of course! But as this series of The Traitors has taught us, it’s often completely wrong. The obvious goes unnoticed, and the group have a herd mentality.
Could Lundy actually host The Traitors?
Perhaps that is the real difference between Lundy and the television programme. On The Traitors, everyone tries to figure out who they can trust. On Lundy, you quickly discover you have to trust everyone, because you’ll all end up on the same boat eventually.
So, if the producers are looking for somewhere to film the next series, Lundy already has a castle, a genuine historical traitor, Knights Templar, Hangman’s Hill, a church tower, mysterious buildings, darkness and a pub named after the man who was actually executed for treason.
I wonder if we were to cast the 28 people who live on the Island, who would be the Traitors and who would be the faithful?
I am, and always have been, a…. (Faithful obviously!)
Photo Image credit: Lundy Landrover – Howard Thompson
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