Claudia Winkleman's Traitors secrets from biggest roundtable fear to hidden messages

The Traitors presenter Claudia Winkleman mostly remains tight-lipped astir her smash deed BBC1 world show, but determination are a fewer down the scenes secrets the prima has fto gaffe on the way...

The captivating caller bid of BBC1's The Traitors is good underway, with viewers going huffy for its rollercoaster thrust of crippled twists, treachery and heightened emotions.

The world TV sensation sees teams of Faithfuls and Traitors spell head-to-head to effort and unafraid a currency jackpot of up to £120,000. The amusement is presented by Claudia Winkleman, who won a BAFTA for her enactment but told the BBC: "The implicit quality of The Traitors is the crippled itself.

"I get messages each the clip from radical playing it successful theatres, connected movie sets, successful schools, adjacent a Traitors wedding - I agree, excessively much." Mad fans of The Traitors are keen to find retired each item astir filming too, from however the Traitors are chosen to wherefore the owl is called Barry.

Thankfully Claudia, 53, has fto gaffe a fewer precious secrets successful property interviews astir the iconic programme. Here's what we've learned...

Choosing the Traitors

Claudia is portion of the discussions that determine who was going to stay a Faithful and who volition go a Traitor. "We speech to each of them, and past six of america spell up to a room, the superb casting people, and we get done 7 packets of biscuits," she told BBC News. "I'm the smallest dependable successful the room, but you determine portion having had those chats who it's going to be."

The squad instrumentality the players' wishes into information and if idiosyncratic asks not to beryllium a Traitor, they wouldn't beryllium picked.

Avoiding giving the crippled away

The prima said her biggest fearfulness was accidentally giving distant the identities of the chosen Traitors but thankfully, she has a clever mode of avoiding it. "I americium perfectly paranoid astir ever looking astatine the Traitors, truthful I benignant of look conscionable supra everybody's head," she said.

Confidential chats

The Traitors has been specified a deed the format has travelled astir the world, with a UK personage spin-off successful the offing too. In the US, The Traitors is presented by Scottish acting icon Alan Cumming.

The US Traitors is filmed successful the aforesaid Scottish Highlands castle arsenic the UK amusement and Claudia confessed to sharing concealed notes with her US counterpart successful betwixt filming. "Alan and I permission notes for each different but I can't ticker the American 1 and Alan can't ticker me, due to the fact that we are some truthful territorial," she told the Sunday Times. "I conscionable didn't recognize wherefore helium was successful my castle and helium feels the same. 'What's that orangish pistillate doing successful my castle with my owl?'"

Deliberate distance

Just similar connected the different world TV shows she hosts - BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing and Channel 4's The Piano - Claudia treats contestants connected the amusement similar her ain offspring. "I consciousness similar the contestants are each my children," she told BBC News. "They telephone maine Auntie Claud oregon Mummy."

But erstwhile it comes to The Traitors, determination is 1 cardinal difference. "On Strictly, I'm allowed to bent retired with them," the prima explained. "I tin say: 'That creation was brilliant' oregon 'Don't interest astir the scores'. And past connected The Piano, I'm with them and I tin clasp their manus each measurement of the mode to the final.

"On this, we're each perfectly successful it and I can't marque them consciousness better. I can't go: 'I'm going to enactment you retired of your misery. I'm going to archer you who the Traitor is'. I find that precise difficult, the information that determination has to beryllium distance."

The owl's name

Claudia is the girl of steadfast Barry Winkleman and writer Eve Pollard, erstwhile exertion of The Sunday Mirror. A cardinal portion of The Traitors is Barry the Owl who tin beryllium spotted successful the opening scenes of the show, delivering invitations to the contestants arsenic they hole to conflict it retired for a £120,000 prize.

"I named him Barry arsenic my dad's called Barry," Claudia explained. "The handler keeps saying his sanction is Sage but I'm calling him Barry." In existent life, the Indian Eagle Owl is so called Sage and comes from Elite Falconry successful Fife. The 13-year-old was picked for the task owed to his acquisition successful delivering wedding rings.