Once we're done laughing at the celebrities' blunders and theorising what could happen next, watching an episode of The Celebrity Traitors tends to leave us with some big, burning questions. No, not 'where did Hannah Fry get that jumper?' (although we have found the answer that one).
We're talking about the logistical side of things. Like... what time are all the celebs expected at breakfast? What if Jerry Hall fancies a lie-in? What happens if Ross Kemp decides he'd rather have a solitary bowl of cereal in the morning?
If you, too, are plagued by questions of admin when you should be focusing on coming up with strategies for James Acaster to make it to the end, worry not, for we are here with the answers.
What time is breakfast on The Celebrity Traitors?
We're all familiar with the glorious breakfast spread that gets put on for all the players of The Traitors – both the celeb and non-celeb version. Smoked salmon! Pastries! The works! We also know that the breakfast scenes are of high importance. This is when everyone finds out who was murdered the night before, followed by closely analysing everyone's reaction to this revelation to scan for possible traitors. But when does this all go down? And, given we know that all the contestants sleep at a hotel, not the actual castle, what time do they have to get up each morning?
There are conflicting reports on this front. Some former Traitors players, such as series one's John McManus, have said they each had their morning meals separately in their hotel rooms and were then taken to the breakfast table where the food was mostly for 'show'. Rayan, also from season one, however, told sleuths on Reddit that 'breakfast was actually breakfast', commenting: 'Some people might have snacked before while waiting for breakfast but certainly nobody was getting a full continental buffet and as far as I'm concerned that castle breakfast [was] definitely my first meal of the day!'
Other former contestants have attested to having eaten the castle buffet, but noted that the food was not as brilliant as it appears on-screen. Season one's Ivan tweeted that 'breakfast is REALLY DRY AND NOT VERY NICE', while Sonja and Aubrey from series two called the breakfast spread 'cold' and 'disappointing' while appearing on The Traitors: Uncloaked.
What to read next
From the scraps of information we can gather, it appears likely that the celebs are able to eat in the morning in their hotel rooms before being driven to the castle, where they can choose to either enjoy the treats on offer or just chat with a prop bit of toast. Rayan also shared on Reddit that players had to be up at around 7am to 8am, 'depending on how much time you wanted to get ready'. We'd hazard a guess that breakfast takes place after 9am.
Do players have dinner together?
Once breakfast is out of the way, we usually watch the contestants complete a mission before returning to the castle for some form of buffet lunch and a post-mission debrief. The next thing we see is the round table. After that, some pre-bed drinks and chat and then everyone leaves to go to sleep. So where's dinner?
From what we can gather, the celebs go back to their hotel rooms between the missions and the round table and have dinner there. Joe Marler said on The Rest Is Entertainment: 'Your food gets brought to you, you can have as much as you like'. Everyone is kept separate in their holding rooms so that there's no chance of any off-camera sneakiness. You'll notice that when the celebrities are shown having a buffet, whether that's for lunch or dinner, they separate into little groups around the castle to discuss the gameplay. This is deliberate, to avoid any sort of unofficial round table situation with everyone all together.
We suspect the meal timings may be a bit changeable day-to-day. If a particular mission lasts a long time, perhaps the buffet gets nudged later and becomes more dinner-like. We've seen the celebrities enjoying lasagne and steak, so that would make sense. Whenever dinner happens, we can rest assured that none of the celebrities are going hungry – Kate Garraway told Woman magazine. 'Things that you might not know about The Celebrity Traitors are that they feed you so much. I’m not joking. Every time they had to pause to reset something or do something spooky, they brought out more food.'
When is bedtime?
After the round table is done and dusted and everyone's said goodnight, the celebrities are individually driven back to their hotel – as they can't sleep in the castle. Rayan said during series one that the faithful were 'firmly in bed by 10-11pm', but that sometimes this was a bit earlier, sometimes later. Those selected as traitors, however, have to stay up later to film the turret scenes. Which adds a solid grounding to the faithful's theories that you can tell who is traitorous by how tired they look.
What happens when a contestant is banished or murdered?
The way episodes are edited makes it look like the murdered celeb is woken up in the night and dragged back to the castle to get killed off. This isn't the case. Maddy of season one revealed that all the faithful sleep through the night and get ready for breakfast as usual. Then, instead of being taken to the castle, the murdered player gets taken to another room 'where the murder letter is sitting on a chair'. Brutal.
Banishments, however, play out pretty much exactly as we see them on screen. Once voted out, the player is taken to do an exit interview then driven back to their hotel to pack up their things.
When do they film the 'talking head' interviews?
Throughout the episodes you'll suddenly see one player speaking to the camera about their suspicions, their love for the other players, or realising they've made a catastrophic error. When do these 'talking head' interviews take place? All the evidence points to this being scattered throughout the day. That's why you'll sometimes notice an interview happening when a celeb has wet hair after a challenge.
Previous players have said that producers were very good at directing players into certain rooms and nabbing them for a chat whenever was convenient. We imagine it's done in quite a subtle way, with celebs prompted to discuss certain things on camera, and there's no dramatic yanking away of a contestant right after they've said something wild.
