The beloved British comedian turned ruthless on Celebrity Traitors and charmed his way into American hearts in the process.
Photo: Studio Lambert/BBC
Alan Carr is the best Traitor of all time. Sure, maybe Cirie Fields or Harry Clark played a better game, but no one else managed to go so undetected while giving the audience so much to watch. Carr, a comedian and presenter best known for hosting the talk show Chatty Man from 2009 to 2017, started off The Celebrity Traitors terrified, shaking and sweating under the emotional weight of the Traitor’s cloak. The very first kill he had to carry out was a “murder in plain sight,” which required him to brush another player’s face. In a fit of terror, he caressed his best friend in the house, Paloma Faith, and promptly lost his greatest ally. It was entertaining, but it did not inspire confidence in his gameplay.
Over the course of the following nine episodes, however, Carr evolved into a coldhearted killer. For his next murder in plain sight, he gleefully offed British national treasure Celia Imrie. He voted out fellow Traitor Jonathan Ross with nothing more than a sigh. Ultimately, he won the entire game by convincing Faithfuls Nick Mohammed and David Olusoga to vote off Joe Marler instead of him, despite Joe leading the charge against previous Traitor eliminees Ross and Cat Burns. While airing in the U.K. on the BBC, the series became a viral success in the States and is now streaming in full on Peacock. Carr was a huge part of that phenomenon, his performance so entertaining that reports have since emerged that the BBC is considering rebooting Chatty Man. “I’ve been on the telly for over 20 years now,” Carr says, “and I have never ever had a reaction to my work like this.”
The U.K. Celebrity Traitors cast is filled with bigger names than the Traitors gets in the United States. What was the casting process like?
The BBC kept it very quiet. We were asked whether we wanted to do it, and they wouldn’t say who else had agreed, so you were putting feelers out in the showbiz world. I heard a rumbling that Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross were cast. I would bring it up to people: “Are you doing it?” “I don’t know whether I am. Are you going to do it?” If you were a celebrity, you would get asked. There was Courteney Cox at one point, Graham Norton, Amanda Holden. I signed up because I love Traitors. But then Daisy May Cooper, who is a friend of mine, pulled out, and I was like, No, no, no! It’s going to be just me with a load of fit Love Island people in swimsuits, and I’m this fat joke. But then the cast got leaked before we went on there.
Who did you immediately want to work with?
Tom Daley. I mean, who wouldn’t want to work with him?
Then you murdered him in half a second.
I got so much abuse when I murdered him, the gays going, “Great, kill the only eye candy in the castle.” And I was like, Hello!
He’s a keen knitter, and when he was murdered, I went back into the room in the turret and his ball of wool was there. He’d been murdered mid-stitch. That image will haunt me till the day I die.
What was the chemistry like among the Traitors?
There was something for everyone, really. Cat was so unbelievably cool, calm, and collected. Jonathan was the mastermind. His strategy in the castle was that he sailed quite closely to the wind, didn’t he, where I was just playing dumb and ditsy. I thought it was a really good mix.
The show portrayed the Paloma kill as almost unintentional, but it worked out so well for you throughout the season. Did you have the strategy in the back of your mind?
Look, I had to get the kill done by midnight, and it had gone past 11. I was getting so stressed, and touching someone’s face is so intimate. I would have loved to have touched Tom Daley’s face or Joe Marler, but Paloma was my friend. Then I woke up, and at breakfast, Paloma comes through the door and I go, My God, it didn’t work! Yes! She’s alive! Cut to half an hour later, I’m shoving her into a coffin in a graveyard, watching her be taken away. It was the worst ending ever for me.
You didn’t think, This could be kind of good for me, at all?
When I sat round the table, people were coming up to me and patting me on the back going, “Alan, you must be feeling so bad.” Off-camera, people were saying, “There’s a mental health person here that you can talk to about losing your friend.” And I was like, “I’m okay. I’ll take each day as it comes.” I realized it was a bit of a masterstroke.
Jonathan made a really bold play early on in cutting Ruth Codd. What did you think of that?
Ruth is such a smart cookie. Everyone else kind of dithered at the roundtable — for how clever David and Stephen are, they’d come out with these theories and never follow them through. Ruth was a Jack Russell with a bone. She was like, “I know it’s you.” One more roundtable and I think she would have exposed everything. Jonathan is an alpha male. He is a big dog.
Do you think there was a way for him to make it to the end?
I think he went as far as he could, to be honest. There is a downside to being an alpha. I could stay under the radar.
I think you could stay under the radar largely because of the early Paloma murder — it immediately became canon for the rest of the game that Alan isn’t a Traitor.
Yes. It was like Claudia came in and said, “Anyone in here could be a Traitor … apart from lovely Alan.” That’s how it felt. I was so immune to it, Clare Balding went, “I’m just going to put Alan’s name down on the slate.” She said it so apologetically: “Sorry, I’ve got to put someone!” I’m like, “That’s all right, Clare. We all make mistakes.”
I think one of the smartest moves you made, looking back, is murdering Joe Wilkinson. When did you get a sense he was onto you?
Looking back, both Joes were a thorn in my side. We just picked off the fiery ones like Mark Bonnar, Tom Daley, Joe Wilkinson, and Ruth. I hate to say this — I love Kate Garraway, but there was no way she was going to suddenly point a finger at us and go, “It’s you and I’m not leaving this table until we nominate Jonathan or Cat or Alan.” David was always on about these theories but never put anything into practice, and with Charlotte Church, I love what Cat said: “She’s always so loud and so wrong.”
Joe Marler was playing dumb with me. He told us he thought it was Nick and David at final five, and we were like, “We have won this!” Then at the roundtable, he goes for Cat.
The Celia murder was a marquee moment for you. Did you learn anything from Paloma’s murder in plain sight that you used here?
I was nervous, but I wasn’t as nervous. There’s moments throughout — when I was sweating and drinking, when I laughed in their face and couldn’t say I was a Faithful, when I forgot I had a shield — when I thought I was going to get caught. Among them was killing Celia; when have I ever quoted Shakespeare?
But the thing is, I loved Celia, and I thought the actual nature of the task meant I had to kill Celia. If I said that to Joe Marler, this big, stocky rugby player with a scowl — that “parting is such sweet sorrow” — when he died, you’d go, “What?” The task did force my hand. And I love Celia, even though she was constantly farting.
Can you explain how you got the house to turn on Joe Marler?
I did that lie when it came time for the roundtable. I said, “All I know is, Joe, I don’t trust you, and you’re telling everyone to vote for Nick and David, and I don’t like it.” I planted the seed, and that was the thing that turned. I was just immune to it, and if you wrongly take me out of the equation and Cat’s gone, but Joe’s there, it had to be Joe. I don’t think he did anything wrong. I think he was doing everything right. I’m a bad person.
You’re not a bad person. It’s the game. You’re playing for charity.
No one wants to hear about charities. The BBC edits out when the celebrities were sitting around talking about charities. They want to see celebrities backstabbing! Of course they never keep that in because it slows the plot and people don’t want to hear about that. But obviously, I was doing it for the children’s cancer charity. When you take that out of the equation, you just get portrayed as the sociopath who can’t stop killing. People watch and go, “How could he kill all these people?” I was like, “I must win for my charity.” That’s when I burst into tears at the end. It was poor little Nick Mohammed’s face; he was so pleased. David looked at me and Nick looked at me like, We’ve got this! I was like, No, love, I’ve got this.
Can you contextualize for American viewers just how successful this show was in the U.K.?
At one point, one in four people were watching it. It’s so funny ’cause I’ll be walking through the park and people are shouting, “Alan, you murderer! Who you going to murder today?” And I know a lot of people watched it, but there’s quite a few who didn’t, so they must be looking at me thinking, Who is this serial killer they’ve released?
It’s very bittersweet because I don’t think I will ever ever be involved in something that was so Zeitgeist-y, that grabbed your attention like this. Paps were outside my house following me. No one gives a shit about my life normally. Not even me.
There were reports that the BBC was looking into bringing back your talk show, Chatty Man. I don’t know what you can say about that, but I’m curious about what the show has done for you professionally.
Listen, I’d love Chatty Man to come back, but that report was one of those clickbaity things. It was just the rumor mill. But I’ve had some streamers get involved and … I mean, who knows? Nothing is set in stone. It’s an exciting time for me. I’m just going to enjoy it. I’m going on a stand-up tour, and I’ve done America before but tiny places. It might be nice to play more of America. If anyone knows me over there, it’s through RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K. I have been around for over 20 years.
Someone said Traitors reminded people of what Chatty Man was like. It was a bit of chaos. I do quiz shows now, and I do renovation shows, and I’m a judge. But Chatty Man was about getting drunk with Lady Gaga or Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift. It has done me the world of good. For someone who was famous for three weeks for murdering intellectuals, national treasures, and Olympians, there’s a hell of a lot of love out there for me. And I’m just enjoying it. It hasn’t always been like this.