Even the Royal Albert Hall’s public announcement system was getting into the spirit of things. “Traitors and faithful, this is your five-minute warning. Please take your seats. The concert begins in five minutes.”
In the hall references to iconic moments of the TV show upped the ante. Three large screens played montages from the series, and a familiar-looking round table stood in the centre of the promming arena. Twelve dancers dressed alternately in the distinctive traitor cloaks and masks, or as the more cartoonish characters of the tasks (It-referencing clowns, lurching scarecrows trailing straw from a particularly nightmarish Wizard of Oz), stalked through the auditorium. The stage too was packed with the massed ranks of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers, all led by Irish conductor Karen Ní Bhroin, making a confident proms debut.
