Why everyone's watching The Traitors: “Crazy witchfinding bullshit. That’s why it’s fun"

Nearly half of everyone watching Irish TV on Sunday evening tuned in for the scheming, lying and game-playing on The Traitors Ireland. It’s a hit.

RTÉ has joined more than 30 broadcasters worldwide in making a version of the Dutch format which sees players strategising, “killing”, banishing and lying – all to win a cash prize.

It is hosted brilliantly with more than hint of theatricality by Cork actor Siobhán McSweeney, who changes her elaborate costumes more often than the contestants change their minds about each other.

Just three episodes in and favourite players are emerging but it is impossible to accurately predict the winner.

The rules are complicated but the appeal is easy to understand.

For Irish Times features writer Patrick Freyne “it’s a game of skill and strategy and not just the random weaponisation of groupthink and paranoid pattern recognition that you get in any office, school or newsroom”.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.

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