'Fortune Hotel is dangerously addictive just like The Traitors'

The biggest surprise about ITV’s new deception-based game show The Fortune Hotel is the number of viewers who have bizarrely claimed it’s a rip off of BBC One’s ratings monster The Traitors. I mean, come on. This show could not be more different to Claudia Winkleman’s hooded masterpiece.

For a start it’s set in a sunshine hotel on the Caribbean island of Grenada, not a grey and mysterious castle in the windswept Scottish Highlands. Also, it features teams of two friends or family members, rather than individuals. Plus, it doesn’t have Traitors and Faithfuls. It has Fortune Holders, Fortune Hunters and Unfortunates.

Oh, and it’s hosted by a man, Stephen Mangan, instead of a woman. See? Completely different.

Mangan was a very good choice, by the way. Just the right blend of charm and harm. He’s no Winkleman, obviously. But he’ll more than do. He also appears to have come dressed as Dan! Moody from Kitchen Planet on the A416. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but it certainly added to the fun for this Alan Partridge fan.

Speaking of Winkleman, if you needed any further convincing about key format differences, I could also tell you that no one on The Fortune Hotel wears a hooded cloak or chunky knit woollens.

Okay, I’d best stop with the evidence now. I’m dangerously close to clutching at the ultimate straw and saying “Well, The Traitors doesn’t have ad breaks but The Fortune Hotel has loads — so there!”

The truth is, in spirit and basic format The Fortune Hotel could not be any more like The Traitors if it tried. (NB: There’s also a bit of Deal Or No Deal in there, and a slight whiff of Sean Lock’s legendary Carrot In A Box game.)

Read more

• Fortune Hotel viewers compare show to The Traitors (Yahoo Entertainment)

• Who's who on The Fortune Hotel? (Yahoo Entertainment)

• The Fortune Hotel review – a fiendishly addictive mix of The Traitors and White Lotus (The Guardian)

To be honest, Winkleman and the BBC really ought to be flattered that ITV’s producers have gone to so much trouble. They’ve even had the cheek to include a few songs from the latest Now That’s What I Call The Traitors Music! album. You know the ones. Jaunty, nostalgic pop numbers slowed-down in a haunting, breathy vocals, echoey piano style.

So far I’ve spotted Abba’s Money Money Money, Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now and Bananarama’s Cruel Summer — and I’m guessing there are more to come.

As we’re in the Caribbean, we’ll no doubt be treated to 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday at some point. "I (breath) Don’t (breath) Like (breath) Cricket (deep breath) Oh (breath) No (long and deep breath, piano break)... "

The good news is I’m fairly confident that The Fortune Hotel is similar to The Traitors in perhaps the only way that matters: It has the potential to become dangerously addictive. The hook wasn’t instant, mind. It took a while for me to get my head around how the format actually worked and who was who (and therefore who I should be rooting for or hating).

Let’s just say I hope Jenny from Gogglebox was well stocked up on notepads. If Jenny thought Line of Duty was tricky to keep track of, this was another level stuff.

And that was even before the episode’s endgame in which the contestants swapped their briefcases back and forth in a manic game of pass the parcel. It was really hard to follow, like watching Tommy Cooper’s legendary “Glass, Bottle, Bottle, Glass” trick on a loop.

By the way, in case the BBC lawyers are still reading, I should point out that the gripping endgame takes place in a nicely lit hotel bar, not a candlelit castle vault — and the contestants are seated in rows, not facing each other across an antique round table.

The object is the same though. They are all trying to decide who is bluffing and who is telling the truth. The truth in question is what’s inside the shiny silver briefcase each team was given at the beginning of the game.

It could be one of three things: Wads of cash totalling £250,000 (that was in one case only), wads of paper totalling zero pounds, or the dreaded Early Checkout Card (which could mean you’re on your way home).

When I say wads of cash, I’m guessing it was fake money. Otherwise that would be one hell of a security job for ITV. You can psychologically profile your contestants all you like, but once someone gets their hands on that amount of cash, what’s to stop primitive impulses from directing them to the first boat to Rio? Besides, if real cash was being used it would make it fairly easy for the other contestants to spot who had the loot: The ones being followed by more security guards than a presidential car.

As it is, in terms of clues they have very little to go on. And that’s another similarity with The Traitors. Despite all the big talk of tactics, game plans and “my acting experience will help me to read people’s faces”(!), the early stages are all about the luck of the draw. That doesn’t make it any less gripping or entertaining though — especially when one of the “I have a master plan” lot gets dumped on their boastful backside.

Who knows, by the end we may have a situation that is almost as gripping as the Harry/Mollie/Jaz three way finale on The Traitors. And if we don’t? Well, Claudia Winkleman and the hoods will be back in a few months.

The Fortune Hotel is available to stream on ITVX, and airs Monday-Thursday at 9pm on ITV1.