Who Can It Be Now?:The Traitors S2.

At the end of the first series of The Traitors, during December 2022, I wrote "I'm not one million per cent sure its success can be successfully repeated without the next batch of contestants being too knowing of what they're letting themselves in for and going in with prepared strategies" and, it turns out, I was more wrong than right.

I was right in that some of the contestants did, indeed, go in with prepared strategies but I was one million per cent wrong about it not being able to repeat its success. Series two of The Traitors (BBC1/iPlayer) was, if anything, more enjoyable than the first one. I was hooked from start to finish. I even took to watching The Traitors:Uncloaked (with Ed Gamble) on BBC2 afterwards. That's seventeen hours devoted to The Traitors alone. A little bit more if you count Marina Hyde and Richard Osman's 'emergency' The Rest Is Entertainment podcast about it. A lot more if you count the time I spent talking to Adam and Darren about it.

A show like this, of course, relies on good contestants and here they didn't disappoint. Okay, some of them still can't spell each other's names, some don't know what the word 'convoluted' means, and some have never heard of Agatha Christie but they're a likable bunch, even those who come across slightly unpleasant under stress reveal themselves to be decent sorts eventually, and they've even (mostly) stopped talking about being one million per cent faithful, instead preferring the more mathematically accurate one hundred per cent.

While they're still worried about having "eyes" on them, it's another body part that has taken precedence. Often contestants will talk about going with their "gut". I don't think I've heard the word 'gut' used quite so many times. I'm not sure how many times exactly. I didn't keep count. I'm not the quantifier of the gut.

The contestants, all twenty-two of them, are introduced at the beginning and, to start with, it's hard to remember who's who but seventeen hours of viewing helps focus your mind on such things. There's Anthony, a chess coach who can work either a formal waistcoat or a casual baseball cap look, there's Charlotte, a recruitment consultant who the producers have noticed looks good in the bath (she does too), and there's Sonja, a sixty-six year old volunteer who claims not to have an "off button" - setting off cliche alert klaxons up and down the country.

Diane is a retired teacher who the editors, for some reason, are setting up to appear very suspicious, Ash is a friendly events co-ordinator from Walthamstow, and Aubrey, sixty-seven, is quite the dandy and owns a cat called Luther Vandross. Quite the character. Ginger haired Paul is a business manager who seems determined to act the pantomime villain to the degree that you suspect he is using his Traitors appearance to tout for work in Dick Whittington at Morecambe Winter Gardens.

Zack is a parliamentary affairs advisor (which ought to arouse suspicion immediately) who combines a strong moral compass with a passion for winding people up (or being rude to people and hiding it behind the guise of being a wind up merchant). He's also the self-appointed in-house witchfinder general who accuses pretty much everyone else of being a traitor. Tracey boasts of being a clairvoyant, a sonographer, and a psychic medium so she's obviously going to be shit at this, and Charlie is a very excitable mental health area manager with a strong Bristol accent. When, during a catapulting incident, she announces "this one's for Bristol" you imagine they can hear her there - and she's in the Scottish highlands.

Miles is a mild-mannered, quietly confident, veterinary nurse, Andrew is an insurance broker with a lovely Cardiff brogue (when he speaks on important subjects he carries the gravitas of a young Richard Burton - who came from nearer Swansea but let's not split hairs) and a buff body that is testament to years of working out, Meg's a quiet lass who wears dungarees and works as an illustrator, and Jasmine is a sales executive who has the annoying tendency of ending major statements with "let that sink in". For my money, the new passive-aggressive version of "end of" or "period". A way of saying "I'm right and you're wrong so this conversation is over".

In other words, I find it rude. Though Jasmine is very pleasant otherwise. Twenty-two year old Harry's a helicopter engineer and, in his own words, a "typical lad" who loves football and boxing, sheepish Brian is a photographer who has tattoos instead of a personality and seems to lose the plot pretty quickly in the Traitors castle, and Jonny is described as 'ex-military' which suggests there's probably a story there - and there is.

Jaz, an account manager, is a bright guy but he's unable to get people to listen to him, Mollie is a friendly disability model - just twenty-one years old, Kyra (the same age as Mollie) is an apprentice economist, Evie (very quiet) another veterinary nurse, and Ross, the last one we're introduced to, is a video director who seems a good laugh and who, in a classic moment, becomes the only one of the gang to break the fourth wall.

Then, of course, there's Claudia (Winkleman). The public face of The Traitors, friend, confidante, and nemesis to the contestants. Great hair (fringe included naysayers), great clothes (she can even work a diamond knit tank top), and great eyeliner. Sit back and enjoy it as she feigns emotional investment in both challenges/missions and banishments.

The latter of which are far more enjoyable to watch. So let's start with the former. The missions were, last time, the least interesting part of the show and so they remain. They look like fun to do (up to a point where some of them start to look a bit daunting) but they're nowhere near as involving as all other parts of the show.

This time, our hapless recruits are sent on a (sort of) treasure hunt with some creepy scarecrows, they're made to use a giant catapult, they're sent on some kind of gold rush, they're forced into abseiling and spelunking, there's a 'cabin in the woods' with skeletons, toads, and a Shawshank Redemption vibe, there's an overly convoluted (if you know what that word means) beacon ignition, a challenge to find birds and mimic their calls, and there's a trip to a cemetery at night where a rather macabre 'funeral' will take place.

That one's pretty good, actually. Back in the big Scottish castle, competing for a prize of somewhere around £100,000, there are noble deer, leaping salmon, and mad owls. There are black Land Rover Defenders, peacocks, and, it being Scotland, midges. Then there's the soundtrack which kind of works yet I still have reservations about.

Mock goth covers of REM's Losing My Religion, Bowie's 'Heroes', Chris Isaak's Wicked Game, The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Bon Jovi's Wanted:Dead Or Alive, Cutting Crew's (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight, The Police's Walking On The Moon, Fugees' Ready Or Not, and, giving the blog its title, the long forgotten Who Can It Be Now? by Men At Work.

Not heard that for a while. It's one of the subject that's not discussed on Uncloaked (The Traitors answer to Big Brother's Little Brother) in which Ed Gamble chats with a host of comedians, podcasters, drag queens, Strictly contestants, and those who competed in the first series of The Traitors about what's just happened and what's about to happen. The likes of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Nick Grimshaw, the Reverend Richard Coles, Clara Amfo, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Stacey Dooley, Nish Kumar, Ivo Graham, and Suzi Ruffell are all entertaining enough but leave you longing to get back to the show proper.

Alongside the stories about IEDs in Afghanistan, broken families, plastic surgery, and colostomy bags (the last one particularly moving, actually) there's a poisoned chalice full of fizzy rose wine, a dungeon, a supremely good familial twist, and a neat little trick right at the beginning that lets you know they're not just repeating the formula of 2022 but they've got some new tricks to add to the mix.

Some things remain. The big cloaks, the round table, the sumptuous breakfast buffets, the half-arsed pool games, and the incorrect guessing. There's top level skullduggery, world class backstabbing, double bluffing par excellence, and, could you even doubt it?, lots and lots of tears. Not all of them genuine. Are some of the contestants too nervous? Are some too confident? It's easy for us as we know who the traitors are. If you were in there, your mind would be working overtime trying to iron out all the crossing and double crossing that's going on.

Which makes it all such fun to watch. The final episode was particularly tense and even quite emotional but the whole thing, from start to finish, was absolutely great. I won't be so cynical about the prospects of a third season now I've seen the second season. Bring it on. Let the games begin.

The Same Old Song:A Trip to the Gilbert and George Centre to see the Paradisical Pictures.

"It's the same old song" sang The Four Tops back in 1965 before adding "but with a different meaning since you've been gone". Gilbert & George, it could be argued, are only halfway there - the Two Tops perhaps. They keep performing the same old song but the meaning never changes. It looks like it never will.

Having an overblown sense of your own importance, an inflated ego, is no hindrance to success in politics and so, it seems, it is the case in art too. Once the enfant terribles of the British contemporary art scene Gilbert & George, as I said after their last piss poor exhibition, have been coasting for way too long and the Paradisical Pictures at their own Gilbert & George Centre on Heneage Street (next door to the lovely Pride of Spitalfields pub - alas this time we didn't visit) are, I'm afraid, more of the same.

They're nice and colourful, I'll give them that, and the exhibition spaces in the new Gilbert & George Centre are rather pleasant but the art itself? It's just stuck. They did something (slightly) shocking once and they've been repeating it for decades. They're like the pub bores telling the same joke over and over again. If they weren't arty-farty types they'd be testing your patience with Del Boy or Frank Spencer impressions.

There are men, Gilbert and George of course, in brightly coloured suits and they're posing among vegetables and behind things that look a bit like gnarled cocks. The press release talks of "dead eyed attitudes of shock and exhaustion" and I'm not sure if that refers to the artwork, the artists, or the visitors to the gallery.

When it goes on to talk of "drowing in a whirlpool of dead flowers" I start to feel I'm drowning in a whirlpool of alphabet soup and bullshit. As ever, this festival of arse-licking comes from Michael Bracewell who continues to say that the works remind him of Alfred Hitchock and Walt Disney.

But Hitchock and Disney made DIFFERENT films with DIFFERENT characters that told DIFFERENT stories. They didn't just churn out the same old shit over and over again. When I last wrote about Gilbert & George I was very rude about them. I hope I've succeeded in being ever ruder this time. It's probably what they'd want - and it's certainly what they deserve.

Thanks to Darren for joining me for this, and for the far more edifying visit to the Fitzrovia Chapel to see Lawrence's marble head, and for buying me a hot chocolate in Costa as well. While Gilbert & George may have disappointed, again, the centre didn't and nor did the lovely Latin American looking house you pass on the way in.

Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow:A Trip To See The Marble Head Of Lawrence.

"You're trying to fool somebody but you end up fooling yourself" - Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow, Felt

 

Lawrence (of Felt/Denim/Go-Kart Mozart/Mozart Estate) has long cultivated the image of an eccentric. From those early stories about him refusing to eat vegetables, sacking a drummer for having curly hair, and refusing to let other people use the toilet in his house to his move away from a kind of dream pop post-punk towards a knowing novelty rock, all the while never forgetting his desire, urge, to become a proper bona fide pop star.

That never really happened. His biggest hit, Denim's It Fell Off The Back Of A Lorry, reached number 79 in the UK charts in 1996 (though Felt's Primitive Painters did top the indie chart back in 1985 when it still meant something) and, in recent years, his appeal has become more 'selective' rather than more wide reaching. Those that know, they know. Others, and there are a lot of others, remain unmoved. If, indeed, they are even aware.

So what's a frustrated pop star to do if they're not, and never really have been, bothering the charts? Tour an old album? Find some mates from the eighties/nineties and form a 'supergroup'? Say something outrageously mean about woke culture in the hope of getting some social media infamy? Or, just an idea, have a marble head of yourself commissioned and unveiled in a glorious Fitzrovia chapel?

Of course, the latter. Lawrence hasn't always been Lawrence of Belgravia (or Edgbaston). For many years he lived on Cleveland Street in Fitzrovia so it seems likely he'd be familiar with The Fitzrovia Chapel. Perhaps that's why he chose to have it put on show there but who knows? Lawrence tends not to give everything away.

Corin Johnson, the sculptor responsible, works from a studio in Camberwell and has previously collaborated with Nick Cave, Grace Jones, and James Johnston from Gallon Drunk and made sculptures of them. I'd managed to miss all of them but with one of the world's number one Felt fans, Darren, by my side I wasn't going to miss this one.

Darren and I had walked up from Waterloo and when we arrived at the Fitzrovia Chapel an extra layer of oddness had taken over the proceedings. The chapel was open, Lawrence's head was staring out from the altar - the dismantled king was ON the throne, and, in front of that, a small group of children were having some kind of party. Drawing pictures, eating packed lunches, that kind of thing. You know how kid's parties go.

We took a seat outside until the party had ended and then went back in. They had little models of the sculpture for sale. £350 with the plinth, £300 without (I wondered how offended Lawrence would be if I bought the plinth alone for £50) and there were postcards and posters too. Lawrence won't have made a lot of money from his music career over the last four plus decades (Felt's debut album Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty came out in February 1982, I'm listening to it as I'm typing this) so we can't blame him for trying to cash in on his infamy.

The statue itself is, of course, bizarre. It's a very good likeness - even though the real Lawrence isn't made of Portuguese pink marble. The curator of the whole thing, Martin Green - former promoter of Smashing nightclub, talked of hosting an event in the chapel some years ago with Leigh Bowery and how that inspired him to use the space to celebrate another 'maverick'.

He goes on to talk about how the work is also inspired by Ken Russell's 1975 film Tommy before the journalist Will Hodgkinson ups the stakes (in a small leaflet you pick up at the door) by waxing poetic about the likes of Saint Sebastian, Joan of Arc, and, er, Vic Godard and the Subway Sect. He makes the point, though, that if Lawrence has done one thing in his career, it's stick to his guns. You only have to listen to his most recent records to know he follows his own path and nobody else's.

Of course, if you don't know (or care) who Lawrence is, if you've never thrilled to Grey Streets or Rain of Crystal Spires - or laughed along with Middle of the Road or Drinkin' Um Bongo, then this will be of absolutely zero interest to you whatsoever. But it'd still be worth going along to have a look at the Fitzrovia Chapel itself.

It's a thing of beauty. I used to work across the road when the chapel was covered by the now demolished Middlesex Hospital (it was built to serve that hospital) rather than the bland corporate cityscape that has replaced it. For the shame, I never visited. I'm glad I've remedied that now. The chapel itself was designed, in 1891, by the Gothic Revival architect John Loughborough Pearson (other notable works:- Truro Cathedral and St. John's Cathedral in Brisbane) and it features a narthex (whatever that is - I looked it up and I'm still not much clearer), a baptistry, and a carved lectern.

Built of red brick and Portland stone, it has a very Italianate feel. More baroque/rococo than Renaissance I'd say (but I'm no expect, just a keen hobbyist). I had this confirmed when I read up to discover that some of the mosaics are inspired by work found in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy though there's all sorts of historical, and geographical, influence gone into the work.

It feels more Felt than it does Denim/Go-Kart Mozart. It's not a novelty chapel, it's the sort of chapel where you'd expect to find a band that recorded songs with titles like Sempiternal Darkness, Crucifix Heaven, Sapphire Mansions, and Stained Glass Windows In The Sky. Fittingly, a member of staff put some Felt music on just as we were leaving. Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow.