There’s the wildly popular TV series, a two-hour immersive experience, a board game, a card game and, perhaps only for the superfans, the opportunity to buy branded full-length hooded cloaks.
Now The Traitors is to be adapted for the stage in what producers say will be a “bold and surprising” theatrical experience.
Hot on the heels of season four finishing on Friday, it has been announced that concept is being developed as a stage production to open in London in 2027.
John Finnemore, a comedy writer, crossword setter and a familiar voice on Radio 4, is writing, and the show will be directed by Robert Hastie, the National Theatre’s deputy artistic director.
The announcement was made jointly by Studio Lambert, which makes the TV series, and Neal Street Productions, a company co-founded by Sam Mendes, which has a catalogue that includes Call the Midwife on TV, The Lehman Trilogy on stage and Hamnet on film screens.
Few details of what audiences can expect have been revealed, but the format is understood to be a play.
The chief executive of Studio Lambert, Stephen Lambert, said partnering with Neal Street “allows us to reimagine the show as a bold and surprising theatrical performance”.
“Taking The Traitors from screen to stage is a hugely exciting next step for this much-loved brand,” he said. “Faithful fans should expect an intense, joyful night out as we reveal a thrilling new hunting ground for our Traitors.”
The Neal Street Productions co-founder Caro Newling said: “In developing The Traitors for the stage, Neal Street and Studio Lambert have curated a team of brilliant faithful theatre-makers … to bring a bold, structural twist to the format that only the live medium can provide.”
The Traitors has become a worldwide reality TV phenomenon since it began on Dutch TV in 2021 as De Verraders.
There are at least 30 versions across the world from Australia to Ukraine, all of which cheerfully encourage contestants to manipulate, lie and backstab in pursuit of murder.
In the US it is presented by Alan Cumming, in Ireland by the Derry Girls actor Siobhán McSweeney and in the UK by Claudia Winkleman, who wrapped up season four at the weekend with victory for Rachel Duffy and Stephen Libby, who stuck to his promise to stay loyal meaning the £95,750 cash prize was shared.
Duffy, seen by some as the most accomplished traitor yet, said she would often be walking in her home city of Newry and people would shout “you big traitor!”, and that she always took it in the spirit it was meant.
Friday’s UK finale had a peak audience of 9.6 million, making it the most-watched finale of the “civilian” version. The celebrity version, won by Alan Carr, peaked at a 28-day figure of 15.2 million.
In the age of YouTube and TikTok and as younger audiences increasingly turn away from live linear television, insiders see those kind of figures as remarkable.
Finnemore is best known as a radio and television writer. As well as creating, writing and appearing in Radio 4’s Cabin Pressure, he has written extensively for Mitchell and Webb. He also sets cryptic crosswords and was only the third person in nearly a century to solve the literary puzzle Cain’s Jawbone.
Hastie’s CV includes Hamlet at the National and the musical Operation Mincemeat, currently in the West End and on Broadway.
• This article was amended on 26 January 2026. The Radio 4 sitcom written by John Finnemore is Cabin Pressure, not “Cabin Fever” as an earlier version said.
