Former Traitors contestant says round tables 'lasted up to three hours' and the show did one thing to add 'tension'

A former contestant on The Traitors has spoken out about how much of the round table discussions actually ends up on TV.

As you might imagine, there's plenty going on in the day-to-day routine of The Traitors contestants which just doesn't make it into the episode, otherwise, the show would take up a much larger slot in the BBC's evening schedule.

Even if we'd love to see all of the discussions, drama, and downright insane accusations that someone makes sense as a Traitor because they're a doctor, it's just not possible.

That's a shame, because former series one Faithful Ivan has said there's so much more we don't get to see on the show.

Speaking at the launch of Spin Genie's AR Treasure Quest, he explained that even if the viewing public doesn't get to see everything, they still get an 'authentic' representation of how things went down.

Ivan was a Faithful on the first series of The Traitors, and explained that the breakfast and round table scenes could take hours to film. (BBC)

Just to jog your memory, Ivan was among the first cohort of Faithfuls in series one of the BBC show, but the author didn't make it very far before the rest of the players decided at the round table that he needed to leave.

He was banished in the fourth episode, narrowly losing his banishment vote and telling the group he'd been Faithful all along.

While viewers only got to see a few minutes of discussion, Ivan said that even if the players can't really keep track of time, the round table goes on for much longer than viewers get to see.

He said: "I don't wear a watch, and obviously you can’t have a phone, so I don't know. I remember someone saying one of the round tables lasted for three hours, not just the conversation, but the voting as well."

Not only do the conversations and voting last a long time, Ivan added that players 'sit there and wait a long time before it starts', and when he was on The Traitors, 'they pump in some music to hype the tension' and get everyone up for the game.

While so much more goes on in The Traitors than makes it into the episode, what people get to see is still very 'authentic'. (BBC)

While the episodes don't capture everything that goes on, Ivan said that contestants 'do get to spend quite a lot of time together', and the scenes at breakfast and the round table 'last for hours'.

He said: "It's hard to measure time because they're quite intense but they do that. You do get hours and hours together, which I think is really good. It means the game does play out naturally. Having said that, it is a live set.

"They're going to have to reset cameras, take down time, and have a break themselves. So there are definitely moments as well when you’re sort of told, ‘okay, the game's over, go away’, and everyone sits down somewhere else and is quiet for a bit.

"Mostly it's very authentic during that time. Things were portrayed as they happened. We were never asked to retake anything, and we were never put in a room and told to speak to people or anything like that. There was no direction, so I really want to make that clear."

All this time spent together can have his advantages, as Ivan claims he figured out Amanda was a Traitor because he sat with her for ages on the train beforehand 'and her entire demeanour changed' after the murderous trio were selected.

One of the main ingredients in the success of The Traitors is host Claudia Winkleman, who Ivan says was 'amazing'. (Stuart Wilson/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA)

He says that, though a quick look at his voting history on the show indicates he never actually voted for her.

These days the show is an absolute juggernaut with over five million Brits tuning in to see the first episode of the new series, but at first there were fears that The Traitors wasn't going to work.

Ivan said the first three episodes of the show 'weren't very successful', but reckons that 'the episode where everything happened with me' is where things started to pick up again.

He credits this with people tuning in to catch up with the show over the weekend and it growing from there.

"That first week of the show, we were all like, ‘oh no, it's just another failed reality TV format’, and then it went crazy," Ivan said, and indeed after those first three episodes viewership had dropped off by over a million before The Traitors turned it round.

It might have something to do with the enthusiasm of host Claudia Winkleman, who Ivan said was 'so friendly' and was 'clearly was a real fan from the very start' as well as being 'very supportive of us as people'.

The Traitors continues on BBC One.