The Traitors and its celebrity spin-off were inspired by a 400-year-old real-life shipwreck, an 800-year-old cathedral, and the art of Hieronymus Bosch, according to the show's Dutch creator Marc Pos.
Pos, a Dutch television producer and director, conceived the idea in 2015 after reading Mike Dash's book Batavia's Graveyard, which recounts a mutiny aboard a Dutch East India Company ship in 1629. The show's eerie castle, cloaks, and roundtable were shaped by his childhood experiences singing Gregorian hymns in St. John's Cathedral in Den Bosch and his fascination with Bosch's depictions of human evil.
From Cathedral Choir to Global Hit
Pos explained how his hometown of Den Bosch influenced the show's aesthetic. "So I come from Den Bosch, a small city in the Netherlands in the South. It's a very charming city, I still love it very much. It is already eight or nine hundred years old, it has this amazing cathedral, it is my favourite cathedral, it is called St. John's," he said in the documentary Traitors: The Faithful Story.
He recalled singing in the cathedral choir as a child: "I was picked out to sing in the choir in the church. I call this a romantic way of thinking, in my fantasy I was in the 16th century. They thought I was a good singer when I was eight or nine and I had to sing Gregorian songs, they were not my favourite songs when I was a child but it was okay."
The cloaks worn by contestants also trace back to his choir days. "The cloaks in The Traitors, I'm not a fancy dress party kind of guy, I don't like that. But when I was a young guy in the choir, they resemble the type of cloaks we were wearing whilst singing in this 800 years old cathedral," Pos said.
Bosch's Influence and the Batavia Mutiny
Pos credited Hieronymus Bosch, who also came from Den Bosch, as a major influence. "He influenced me because when I was young I was at his house from the 15th century where he lived in the market place. I went to the library and I took a book and saw all those really crazy analogies of man and the behaviour of man," he said.
The initial concept, originally titled The Mutineers, was based on the fate of the Batavia, which struck a coral reef and became stranded on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands off Western Australia on 4 June 1629. A junior merchant, Jeronimus Cornelisz, took control of the survivors and ordered the murder of around 125 men, women, and children before being captured and executed.
Pos said the story ignited his vision: "My first thoughts were around 2015. I was reading this book about the mutiny on the Batavia. It took me a month to read it or something because you read a few pages and then you're imagining what happened, like a movie, or you research more about this story. I was reading this book about a mutiny and I saw this awful human behaviour and it was all about trust. That was the fire-starter, so to speak."
His first pitch, set on a ship with contestants sailing to Indonesia and Australia, was rejected dozens of times because filming on a ship would be too expensive. A version similar to the UK format eventually aired in the Netherlands on RTL in 2021 and now airs in over 40 countries.
Studio Lambert's Role and Future Plans
Pos credited British independent production company Studio Lambert with turning the show into a global hit by upholding his three golden rules: no outside interference with contestants, viewers must see all discussions, and the Traitors' identities must never be kept secret from the audience.
"It was a success in the Netherlands but then there was the amazing Studio Lambert who enhanced it and made it with an incredible professionalism and took this format of ours and turned it into something that is a now a worldwide hit," Pos said. "We needed all of this. All those phases - the idea, the developer, the extra creatives, the broadcaster and then the UK colleagues. That's the full diamond, so to speak, it's not just me."
Pos has since sold the rights to The Traitors and is working on a new reality show idea. He also plans to visit the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, 50 miles off the coast of Australia, to recreate the fateful voyage of the Batavia. Traitors: The Faithful Story is available on UK digital from Reel2Reel Films now.
