The Night I Became a Traitor and Learned That Murdering the Faithful Can Be Fun

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London’s Covent Garden is home to a famous opera house, soon to be showing Puccini’s tragic thriller “Tosca,” but at the address I am heading to in the district, the entertainment on offer is more of a tragicomedy: a tale of betrayal and murder, set to the soundtrack of a gothic horror, but with unintended comic undertones. Here, behind smoky glass and lit by a flickering red light, you can make out three hooded figures … The Traitors.

“The Traitors: Live Experience” has just opened its creaking doors to the public, looking to tap into the fervid interest in the TV show. Launched in the Netherlands in 2021, the reality series has spawned iterations in more 30 territories to great acclaim. Studio Lambert’s U.S. version for Peacock won two Emmys last year, and was recently nominated in five categories for this year’s Emmy contest.

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Now “The Traitors: Live Experience” is looking to stoke some of the same emotions aroused by the program. Speaking to the Guardian, Neil Connolly, the creative director behind the live game, said his desire was to “make people’s hearts race.” He added, “That moment when you feel your heart pounding in your chest, I know that I’ve done my job correctly.”

Even tears may be forthcoming, but could be to your advantage. The FAQs section on the website of the “Live Experience” includes the question, “What if I cry at the Round Table?,” and responds, “If the stakes feel high, that’s because they are… but we promise, no one is here to judge you. In fact, a few tears might even throw the Faithful off your scent.”

Let us return to Covent Garden, where I am led past the dismayingly friendly door staff into The Cloak & Dagger, a bar serving cocktails with names that conjure up thoughts of murder and mayhem. After a brief chat with the other players in my group, we are whisked down stairs and along corridors – whose décor is akin to that found in a Scottish castle – passing doors from which come shrieks of denunciation and denial.

In the gloomy wood-panelled room into which we are ushered, there is a round table identical to that in the TV show, and here we are greeted by a cloaked host – replicating the role played by Alan Cumming in the U.S. show and Claudia Winkleman in the U.K. version – with a look familiar to devotees of Bauhaus, The Cure or any such goth band of the late 1970s and early 80s.

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The initial round is harmless enough, as players work together to add to the group’s pot of gold, the size of which will dictate the position of the winner on the site’s leaderboard. But then “night” falls, and the players are instructed to don blindfolds while the host selects two Traitors by placing a hand on their shoulder, and I am chosen.

Now that they know Traitors are in their midst, the smiles of the Faithful vanish, replaced by dagger-like stares, and the mood chills.

After another mission to add to the pot, the Traitors are asked to murder one of the Faithful. We choose the guy who had stepped up to be the spokesperson for the group – clearly a ringleader. He looks shell-shocked as he is led from the room.

After another joint enterprise, I and my fellow Traitor get to recruit a third member to our ranks, and we go for someone who has been the loudest of the group. I hope he will deflect attention from me. He is sitting next to his wife, so I figure it’ll be wise to divide the loving couple.

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Even marital bliss, or its prospect, is no protection. “At the end of one game, a player had to tell his fiancee he was a traitor. Before he even finished speaking, she had ripped off her engagement ring and thrown it on the floor,” Connolly told the Guardian.

After another group activity, there comes the time to banish a player in the hope of finding a Traitor. Each of us has to say why the others are suspicious, and I pick on one player for being overly demonstrative. Discussions become heated: one of the female competitors is asked, “Why do you think I’m suspicious of you?” “Misogyny?,” she shoots back. An emotive young man is accused of acting like “Hugh Grant in a romcom,” which is judged to be “a bit strange.” A slightly gawkish young man is told he looks “shifty” and when he smiles nervously, it is quickly seized on as further proof. “Look at that smirk. He’s definitely a Traitor,” someone blurts.

The three players to my left seem to be acting as a cabal, conferring and voting together. Their intention? To expel me. The conspirators claim to have “heard a noise” from my direction. I plead my innocence but to no avail. Their “evidence” is deemed damning by the others. Before I am escorted from the room, I reveal my true status, and the room bursts into gleeful applause.

I am then marched to another room where I join the guy I just murdered … that’s awkward. He demands to know why I killed him, and I persuade him that he was clearly the best player, and that was why he had to go. The habit of lying can be difficult to shake off.

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On the wall are four TV screens so we can watch and listen to the remaining players scheme. We, and those who join us later, are referred to as “The Dead” and we can communicate to the living via a phone to help them with their missions, if we feel generous, but I don’t. I’m firmly rooting for my fellow Traitors, and when one of the cabal who ousted me is murdered, greeted by gasps from her friends, I feel a surge of guilty pleasure.

Eventually all the Traitors are unmasked, and as the Faithful cheer, I plot how I’ll play it differently next time.

Ticket prices range from £29.50 ($39.10), for the early bird rate, to £47.50 ($62.95) for peak periods. Bring your own cloak.

The experience is produced by Immersive Everywhere, Cuffe & Taylor and Global Creative, under license from the TV show’s distributor, All3Media Intl.

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