The Fortune Hotel, review: little but a sun-splashed second-hand Traitors botch job
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Another evening, another derivative cash-themed elimination show hosted by someone who’s never off the telly in which pairs of contestants from central casting fight one another for a life-changing pot of gold. Earlier this week it was Double the Money with Sue Perkins, which is what it says it is.
Now it’s The Fortune Hotel (ITV1) with Stephen Mangan, which isn’t. That this money hunt is hosted in a Caribbean hotel seems so far to be neither here nor there. It just looks nice. It could just as efficaciously be shot at Butlin’s in Skegness.
How to explain the concept? Imagine an odd-couple wedding between The Traitors and Deal or No Deal. There’s lashings of deception in play, contestants sizing one another up, the swanky location, plus hectic though also dull games to pad out the hour before the host comes in to twist the knife.
So far, so Traitors. But at the start of the game each pair is handed a briefcase. One of them contains £250,000. Most hold nothing but paper. One (or, for added jeopardy, is it two?) guarantees elimination for the so-called Unfortunate who is in possession of it come the end of the episode.
As for who is taking part, they all seem to have been to reality boot camp, so schooled are contestants nowadays in the ways and wiles of shows of this ilk. There’s already talk of putting targets on backs, of lying low and playing nice and other generic tropes. Meet the actor, the barrister, the investigator, all claiming advantageous knowledge of human motive. If we had the fortune teller we’d have the full house of behavioural ninjas, but she’s in Double the Money.
Perhaps the pernickety concept will become clearer, and just maybe it’ll be a humongous hit, but for the moment it feels like starting on a new board game but first having to pore over the small print of a casuistical rulebook. In the first episode’s finale came a psychological test involving much exchanging of said suitcases. It’s quite as pulsating as it sounds.
The first to go out were a pair of dim lightbulbs who came in proclaiming their fabulousness. They’re better off out of this sun-splashed second-hand botch job.
