In this gloriously high-stakes game of pass the parcel, 20 contestants try to win £250,000 by passing around a briefcase full of cash at a Caribbean hotel
The Traitors on a beach, anyone? Ever since the BBC’s Claudia Winkleman-in-a-castle contest became a runaway hit, rival broadcasters have been tripping over their hooded cloaks to commission their own version. We’ve had The Traitors in a stratified high-rise (Channel 4’s Rise & Fall), The Traitors go Greek island-hopping (ITVX’s Loaded in Paradise), The Traitors in the Big Brother house (Netflix’s The Trust: A Game of Greed) and The Traitors v James Bond (Prime’s 007: Road to a Million).
Now ITV1 has thrown its fingerless gloves in the ring with The Fortune Hotel, pitched as “a hybrid of The Traitors, The White Lotus and Deal Or No Deal”. Sounds like a horrific Frankenstein format, but somehow it works. Of the new wave of post-Traitors copycat programming, this comes the closest yet. It’s a fiendishly addictive affair that might just be your next reality fix.
