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Celebrity Traitors is absolutely getting us through autumn. The high stakes, high camp murder mystery-themed game show has everything I could ever want from my autumnal TV fare. Dramatic cloaks and lanterns. Screeching owls. Claudia Winkleman's fringe. Knitwear. High fashion funeral processions. And some of the best beloved figures the nation has to offer.
Amongst the 19 celebrity contestants is David Olusoga. Historian, professor and TV presenter, Olusoga seems like the perfect fit for the Traitors castle. Already, he has made his mark on the game.
With two Faithfuls murdered and two banished, the game truly is afoot. But will Olusoga last till the end? Only time will tell.
Until then, who is David Ologsua? And what has happened in his Celebrity Traitors journey so far?
It all comes down to this.
David Olusoga is so much more than a Faithful. The British-Nigerian is also an historian, writer, broadcaster and film-maker. He currently works as a Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester, but you probably recognise him thanks to his historical documentaries on the BBC. His book Black and British: A Forgotten History was published in 2016 and made into a docuseries the same year.
As a Black Brit, Olusoga felt his history had never been explored. “It was presented as impossible – a dualism that couldn’t exist, because whiteness and Britishness were the same thing when I was growing up,” he told The Guardian. "So, to discover that there was a history of being Black and British, independent from being half-white-working-class and being half-Black Nigerian, that was what was critically important to me.”
Ultimately, his aim is to shed light on the unwritten, forgotten stories of history. “I care deeply about people who were mistreated in the past. I care about the names on slave ledgers, I care about the bones of people in Africa, in mass graves in the First World War and in riverbeds in Namibia. I care about them," he said. "I think about them when I read the letters, when I look at their photographs and their faces. No one gave a damn about them. That’s my job – to care about them. And I will be ruthless in fighting for them.”
He was awarded an OBE in 2019 for his services to history and to community integration, and he received his medal from King Charles III in 2023.
Needless to say, The Celebrity Traitors is a far cry from Olusoga's work as an historian — it's a little more silly and, I think it's safe to say, a whole lot less important. Nevertheless, Olusoga is embracing his little break from academia.
“This show is not like anything else I've been asked to do," he said before entering the castle. "So many people I know love this show. People who wouldn't normally watch anything else like this love The Traitors. So, there's something special about it.”
Olusoga was made a Faithful on the show — which is exactly what he had hoped for. “I would like to be a Faithful for the simple reason, I think I'd be a terrible Traitor," he said. “That’s mainly because of my memory; my mind is always wandering off. I think there's a terrible risk that I'd forget that I was in deep cover.”
So far, Olusoga has kept a fairly low-profile. However, he was thrust into the spotlight in the third episode, when the Traitors threw his name in the ring as a potential victim. After all, they noted, he is certainly “intelligent,” “smart” and "perceptive”. Our final glimpse of Olusoga saw him ruminating in his private quarters and wringing his hands. We'll have to wait and see if he makes it through the night.
“I think because of the way I dress, everyone thinks that I'm dark and spooky all the time."
