I'd make a terrible traitor, says TV historian – but is he bluffing?

David Olusoga will vie with Stephen Fry and Clare Balding in a celebrity version of the hit show that rewards treachery

- Vanessa Thorpe

Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, home to The Traitors show, has played host to some fairly spectacular skulduggery in the past three years.

But the backstabbing, swirling of hooded cloaks and general level of venal deception are to go up a gear from Wednesday night, when the first British celebrity version of the BBC's hit format begins. Historian David Olusoga, for one, will bring his understanding of cold war espionage to the cutthroat contest.

Olusoga is wary, he has revealed, of being trapped in a "forest of mirrors", a favourite KGB spy technique for confusing the enemy. The columnist and television presenter will not disclose whether or not Claudia Winkleman, the show's mistress of ceremonies, selects him as a traitor, but said he had originally hoped to remain a faithful.