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Celebrity Traitors star David Olusoga says there was one major flaw in the faithful’s gameplay, and that was having “too much fun”.
The first UK celebrity series of the popular reality show has been a ratings hit since its launch a month ago, wrapping up with a tense finale on Thursday night.
NB. This article contains spoilers related to the final episode
The faithfuls in Celebrity Traitors made one fatal error… Pic: BBC/Studio Lambert/Paul Chappells
Pic: BBC/Studio Lambert/Paul Chappells
Speaking to Sky News’ Anna Jones and Kamali Melbourne on the new Mornings with Jones and Melbourne, Olusoga said: “We were brilliant at the tasks and every day we went out and did what were basically bonding exercises.
“We all really got to know each other, and then we were terrible at the round table because we just liked each other too much.”
The 55-year-old historian says it was a “devilishly difficult game,” admitting he would have been a “terrible” traitor because he “wasn’t very good as a faithful”.
Treacherous Alan Carr was crowned the winner of the show, after a nail-biting roundtable which saw fellow traitor Cat Burns banished, followed by faithful Joe Marler.
The celebrities proved to be the worst in the show’s UK history at rooting out the traitors, a fact not lost on Olusoga: “For the most part, it was people sort of not being very good to pointing fingers at each other”.
Respected for his intellect and insight, Olusoga says the show has left him questioning his skill set: “I learned the limits of my kind of my approach to logic, which made a lot of sense to me but didn’t really get me very far.”
Despite many viewers feeling Carr let slip plenty of clues that he was a traitor, Olusoga says he never once suspected him.
Olusoga says: “It was like a double bluff. It was somebody who wasn’t trying to disguise that they were a traitor, therefore, it seemed logical that they weren’t a traitor…
“I think, of all the people, Alan probably got the fewest votes in the entire show. The other thing is, Alan is a national treasure. He’s innately likeable. I think none of us really wanted to believe Alan was a traitor because he had us laughing, we were in stitches the whole time.”
Pic: BBC/Studio Lambert/Euan Cherry
Despite his lack of competitive success on the show, he says it’s an experience he relished.
“It’s very easy to get stuck in your own ruts as an adult, so to be plucked out of your world, to have your phone taken away from you, to be put in this entirely new environment – this amazing, surreal environment, with these amazing people – it was like the first week of university again. It was like starting a new school. That was wonderful.”
Previously a fan of the show, he says being a player was a completely different ballgame: “You really haven’t got a clue… you see patterns in the clouds”.
He also has no regrets about his decision to get involved: “I’ve been asked to do a lot of different shows. And I’ve always said no to all of them. But even before doing it, my view was, Traitors is special”.
Olusoga is currently working on a Remembrance project with Findmypast to archive pictures of fallen soldiers in the First World War.
Entertainment
New film ‘proves beyond shadow of a doubt’ that Elgin Marbles were stolen, director claims
A new documentary proves “beyond any shadow of a doubt” that the Elgin Marbles were stolen, according to its director.
David Wilkinson claims The Marbles settles one of the most divisive debates in cultural heritage: whether 19th-century diplomat Lord Elgin legally acquired the Parthenon Sculptures, better known as the Elgin Marbles.
The film revisits how the sculptures were removed from the Parthenon in Athens while Greece was under Ottoman rule – and ended up in London.
It argues that Lord Elgin did not legally acquire the artefacts – and instead, it amounts to “the greatest heist in art history”.
Reuters file pic
Actor Brian Cox, historian Dominic Selwood and solicitor Mark Stephens are among those who appear in the documentary.
The British government bought the sculptures from Lord Elgin and installed them into the trusteeship of the British Museum, where they have remained for 200 years.
“He needed the money from the British government to pay for all the bribes he’d given to members of the Ottoman Empire,” Wilkinson says of the transaction.
“Lord Elgin did sell them … but the question becomes, did Lord Elgin actually have the right to purchase them?”
PA file pic
Classical archaeologist Mario Trabucco della Torretta dismisses Wilkinson’s claims.
“The allegation of bribery to obtain the Marbles is just wrong in historical terms,” he told Sky News.
Torretta was the key architect behind a joint letter that included former prime minister Liz Truss, historian Dr David Starkey and Sir John Redwood – alleging the British Museum is part of a “covert” and “accelerating campaign” to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
Responding to Wilkinson’s claims of bribery, he added: “The only reference to ‘presents’ comes years after the start of the removals … do people presume that they run a ‘bribe now, pay later’ scheme back then in Constantinople?”
One of the most contentious points in the debate is the legitimacy of an Ottoman permission document known as a “firman”, which is claimed to have authorised Lord Elgin removing the items from Greece.
There is only an Italian text referred to as a translation of this document.
David Wilkinson
Wilkinson said: “It was normal practice at the time that a copy would be kept in what was then Constantinople, and another copy would have been sent off to Athens.
“There would be a record in Istanbul and the Turks have gone through it in great detail over many decades and they can find nothing.”
Speaking to Sky News in 2024, Dr Zeynep Boz – head of combatting illicit trafficking for Turkey’s culture ministry – said there is no proof of the firman in the Ottoman archive.
“Despite extensive archival research, no such firman has been found. It is even difficult to call this document a translation when the original is not available,” she said at the time.
Torretta offers an explanation: “Burning the Ottoman governor’s archive was one of the first acts of the Greek revolution.”
Reuters file pic
While the arguments are not new, The Marbles also examines how other institutions have handled similar restitution cases.
In the film, Cox says if the marbles would have gone back to Athens already if they had found their way to Edinburgh and not London.
Back in 2023, the National Museum of Scotland returned The House Of Ni’isjoohl memorial pole to Canada.
Meanwhile, Glasgow’s Kevingrove Art Gallery Museum returned a shirt to the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in the US.
And when it comes to the Parthenon Sculptures – Germany’s Heidelberg University and The Vatican have both returned fragments to Greece.
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Dec 2024: Elgin Marbles ‘belong in the UK’
The British Museum Act 1963 prevents treasures being legally given away by the British Museum.
The government has repeatedly it has no plans to change existing policy on restitution, and that it is up to the trustees of the museum to decide.
A spokesperson for the British Museum repeated a statement given to Sky News in July: “Discussions with Greece about a Parthenon Partnership are ongoing and constructive.”
The documentary scrutinises the ethics of foreign national treasures that were taken and are now housed in Western museums, but as it stands the institutional and governmental answers don’t appear to be changing.
The Marbles is in UK and Irish cinemas from today.
Shirley Valentine actress Pauline Collins has died “peacefully”, aged 85, surrounded by her family.
The actress, who starred in the first series of sitcom The Liver Birds, and became a household name in Upstairs Downstairs, had Parkinson’s disease for several years.
Her later role in the 1989 film Shirley Valentine, playing the lead character of the bored Liverpudlian housewife, earned her an Oscar nomination.
‘Iconic, strong-willed’
Her family said in a statement: “Pauline was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her life. A bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen. Her illustrious career saw her play politicians, mothers and queens.
“She will always be remembered as the iconic, strong-willed, vivacious and wise Shirley Valentine – a role that she made all her own.
“We were familiar with all those parts of her because her magic was contained in each one of them.
“More than anything, though, she was our loving mum, our wonderful grandma and great-grandma. Warm, funny, generous, thoughtful, wise, she was always there for us.
“And she was John (Alderton)’s life-long love. A partner, work collaborator, and wife of 56 years.
“We particularly want to thank her carers: angels who looked after her with dignity, compassion, and most of all love.
“She could not have had a more peaceful goodbye. We hope you will remember her at the height of her powers; so joyful and full of energy; and give us the space and privacy to contemplate a life without her.”
Receiving her OBE from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 2001. Pic: PA
She married fellow actor John Alderton in 1969.
‘Nation’s sweetheart’
He described her as a “remarkable star”.
Collins with, from left, Sheridan Smith, Dame Maggie Smith, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Courtenay and Billy Connolly at the London Film Festival in 2012: Pic: PA
He said he worked with her more than any other actor in TV series, films and West End stage shows, and had “watched her genius at close quarters”.
He added: “What I saw was not only her brilliant range of diverse characters but her magic of bringing out the best in all of the people she worked with. She wanted everyone to be special and she did this by never saying ‘Look at me’.
“It’s no wonder that she was voted the nation’s sweetheart in the 1970s.
“She will always be remembered for Shirley Valentine, not only for her Oscar nomination or the film itself, but for clean-sweeping all seven awards when she portrayed her on Broadway in the stage play, in which she played every character herself.
“But her greatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.”
Read more:
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Born in Exmouth in 1940, Collins was raised near Liverpool and began her career as a teacher.
But after taking up acting part-time, she landed her first television role as a nurse in the series Emergency Ward 10.
Collins also won great acclaim for her role in 1997 film Paradise Road, which tells the story of a group of women in a Japanese prisoner of war camp who defy their captors by founding an orchestra.
The film also starred Glenn Close, Cate Blanchett and Frances McDormand.
In 2001, Collins was made an OBE for her services to drama.
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