Rob Beckett has explained why comedians perform well on Celebrity Traitors, saying they can "change the emotions" at the Round Table. The stand-up, who appeared on this year's show, discussed why he believes Alan Carr won last year and why comedians are faring well in the current BBC series.
Power of humour at the Round Table
Beckett said: "It doesn't matter who you're in a room with, if you're funny, you've got a little bit of control of that room, because you can completely deflect with humour.
"You can close conversations down. You can change their emotions if they're frustrated and inquisitive. But then you get a laugh out of them. Then it's all switched. So it's quite a lot of power in those situations if you can disarm people with humour."
He made the comments on Alan Carr: My Best Bits & More, a new Channel 5 show looking back at the last 25 years of Carr's career. The highlight was Carr winning Celebrity Traitors last year, with an iconic moment at the end when he told the other contestants he had fooled them.
Jonathan Ross on Carr's unlikely win
Jonathan Ross, who also took part in the series, admitted: "If you'd have told me who has the least chance of winning, I would have said absolutely, with no doubt, the least chance there is no way he could possibly win - It's Alan Carr. And yet still we don't quite know how he did it."
The TV chat show host also said he only agreed to sign up after learning Alan was involved, as he wanted to make sure good people would be in the castle with him. Ross said: "Traitors was a remarkable experience for all of us who took part there. The majority of people who went in there, went in there because they loved the show.
"But before going in, I wanted to check whether it was people that I thought would make the show good, and I thought that might be tolerable to be with. And when I knew Alan was going in, that's when I thought, okay, this is going to be fun. Alan helps make a show better than it is always.
"I was thrilled when I found out he was a fellow traitor. But the thing is, like most people, I thought, okay, he's not going to last that long. Alan wouldn't really talk to me about it. It was interesting, so I would say I'm really struggling with this, and he'd go 'Oh, he'll be all right'.
"But he wouldn't unload, and I don't know whether he had to keep it really because he was really struggling, he had to keep it really tamped down, because otherwise it was going to all come out."
Victory and recognition
Whatever his methods, they worked, and Carr went on to win Celebrity Traitors with 15 million tuning in to watch. Ross says Carr's emotional response as he broke down when he won was "so genuine, so charming and so lovely" that it made his victory perfect, and it was also a reason fans were so pleased to see his success.
Carr, who has also had his own chat show in the past as well as a host of other TV series, received the Special Recognition prize at the National TV Awards in September. Alan Carr: My Best Bits & More is on Channel 5 on Saturday at 8.35pm.
