Former Traitor Andrew Jenkins, from Wales, has been explaining why he thinks this year’s Welsh contestants blew it
Over the last four seasons of The Traitors we have seen some iconic Welsh contestants. This includes season one’s Amanda Lovett, season two’s Andrew Jenkins, and season three’s Elen Wyn. Perhaps we could also include Charlotte Berman who faked a Welsh accent too.
Well, this year’s edition of the popular deception series hosted by Claudia Winkleman features two Welsh contestants in the way of Cardiff barrister Hugo Lodge and local government officer Fiona Hughes from Swansea.
Both were given the role of Traitors, and Fiona was the show’s first ever red-cloaked Secret Traitor, who joined Rachel and Stephen in the turret of the Scottish castle.
Unfortunately, both contestants were banished at the roundtable after raising the suspicions of the Faithfuls.
Fiona was banished following a feud with fellow Traitor Rachel, and Hugo was dismissed after paying what some thought to be an over-the-top tribute to murdered contestant Ben. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter
Speaking to Buzz Bingo, former Traitor Andrew Jenkins offered his opinion on where the Welsh contestants went wrong on this year’s series.
He joked that “being Welsh” was what got them banished.
Andrew added: “Haha I’m joking. Basically, I think Hugo was too obvious. He put on a big show at breakfast time when Ben was murdered. He was too over the top, to be honest with you.
“Obviously, Fiona, fair play to her. She was very, very brave, and she went for it. She lived by her truth. If that were me, I would have held back a little longer because Rachel has so much influence on the other players.
“For Fiona to go for it as soon as she did was a big risk and a big gamble, but fair play. She was real and authentic, and I’ve got to give her credit for that.
“To be honest, I think she could have done really well if she’d stayed in a bit longer. I think she just went for it, maybe a little bit too much.
“She would be massively under the radar; nobody suspected her, really. I think she could have been in with a shot to win it if she hadn’t done what she did. It backfired a little bit.”
When he was asked if it was nice to see Welsh representation in the cast, the man from Talbot Green said: “It is, but I think, Studio Lambert, which produces Traitors, has won lots of awards for their diverse casting. I think that’s one of the reasons that Traitors is so popular, it’s just normal people all from different backgrounds.
“They’ve all got great stories. It’s always nice to see the Welsh represented.”
When asked where he went wrong, Hugo agreed with Andrew that he made a mistake speaking at the breakfast table. The barrister said: “I was definitely too big at breakfast. I mean that’s the recollection, which is a genuine one.
“If you’ve seen Uncloaked Ben and I are mates. So I genuinely wanted someone to say: ‘This guy put everything into it. He’s got a heart of gold.’ I wanted someone to say that. But I was way too big for breakfast.
“I was too big television basically. I mean that if I’d been in the Albert Hall, in the Phantom of the Opera, that kind of red face and that would have been appropriate but no – I was way, way, way too big.
“Everyone’s so sensitive at breakfast. I don’t know if you remember the lovely doctor guy Kaz. All he said was: ‘Let’s have a toast’ – a bit similar to me. ‘Let’s have toast to someone who’s gone.’ And they rounded on him and he was completely innocent. He was a Faithful. So there’s a lesson there – don’t be too big for breakfast.
“But generally I’ve got no regrets about it at all because I kind of anticipated this thing about being a senior professional. It was going to be suspicious at some point.”
Meanwhile, local government officer Fiona told us she had no regrets from her time on the show, even if she jumped the gun when turning on her fellow Traitor Rachel. She said: “You want to do the best that you can and so I think I did.
“I fired a shot too early at Rachel, but I knew she’s such a fantastic player and that it was my only opportunity and I had to go for it then because I would have been banished and I wanted to do it on my terms and not be somebody’s pawn. So my cunning little plan did spectacularly backfire.
“I know it came out of the blue, and it was the only opportunity that I could see, well, the only one that had landed on my lap, and I thought, ‘shall I run with this or shall I not? ‘
“Then I thought, ‘no, I’ve got to do it now because I would have been pushed under the bus in the following episode or the episode after’. So, when I asked Rachel to come and have a little word with me, a little one-to-one, which I would do with anybody.
“Then I asked her, ‘are you fibbing?’ It’s a gentler word than lying, isn’t it? That doesn’t sound so nice, it’s much nicer to say, are you fibbing?
“So when I asked, and of course Rachel said, ‘what makes you think that’, and it all kind of escalated from there, because Rachel then went into the kitchen and told everybody. I walked in a minute or so later, and she said, ‘tell them all’, well I couldn’t backtrack then, I had to run with it.
“I just knew… because she’s played it so brilliantly that I was out the following day. And I don’t think I defended myself as I would in any other situation because I realised I was up against a far better competitor. So yeah, that was my experience of this brilliant show.”
You can watch The Traitors on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
