Hot TV CHOICE With Mike Ward

Would you like the chance to win a frankly fabulous £120,000?. You would? Oh, dear, that’s a shame because unfortunately you’re too late to enter the show where it’s up for grabs. But you’re not too late to watch it, and see who gets their paws on the cash instead, if that’s any consolation.

It’s a new thing starting on BBC One tonight called THE TRAITORS (9.30pm), hosted by Strictly’s Claudia Winkleman, where 22 contestants stand a chance of winning this lifechanging prize. Until they start getting murdered, that is.

Yes, I probably should have mentioned that earlier.

Don’t worry, though: they don’t get murdered for real (I’ve checked, and apparently that would be a breach of the BBC charter) but they do get eliminated from the contest in a manner Claudia refers to in precisely those terms (since it sounds more dramatic than “sent home”).

The people doing this nonmurdery “murdering” stuff are the three contestants Claudia has secretly picked for the all-imporant traitor role. The rest, known as the “faithfuls”, are all potential victims, their fate in the hands of the trio who can’t be trusted.

To start with, though, everyone must work together to carry out various physical and mental challenges, each of which will enable them to add more cash to the jackpot. And that’s when we, as viewers, get our first proper chance to decide which of them we’re going to root for and which of them we find seriously annoying.

The latter category is a fair bit bigger.