Your nerve-wracking (in a good way) Heyday Friday newsletter

An unexpectedly enjoyable tense experience, an entertainingly tense TV recommendation, a tension-relieving sleep hack, and sigh of relief for my little house in this week's newsletter.

Jul 25, 2025

Hello!

No blog this week, instead I wanted to share with you something I did at the weekend which, for once, was ahead of the curve, rather than my usual position lagging ever so slightly behind it.

It’s something an old friend of mine is tangentially involved in (as a producer) which was undergoing final stage testing ahead of its opening to the public from Friday Aug 1st.

Here’s a little visual clue before I go ahead with the reveal (that’s another clue too).

Those of you who are Traitors fans like me, will, I imagine, recognise the infamous yellow chair where participants in the wildly successful TV reality show are interviewed and, when heart-sinkingly relevant, be given their fateful murder messages.

And the reason I’m sitting in this significant seat (which I only realised after the pic was taken, looks as if it’s being eaten by my dress) is that it’s part of the setting for the brand new Traitors Live Experience, a brilliantly conceived, nerve-wrackingly realistic, interactive recreation of the show, complete with the iconic round table, missions that give you the opportunity to build up your pot of gold and protective shields to be found and/or won. Then there are the brutal banishments - and the even more brutal discussions leading up to them - and yes, the merciless murders too.

Participants take part in groups of up to 14 - the game has been specifically designed to be played with people you don’t know and having done it with my friend (we brought the average age up by about 20 years!), a group of four people who knew each other and an otherwise randomly assigned group of strangers, I can see why it works well that way (you can book a private table if you want to play with a group you know).

Each group is escorted to their round table room where all the business of the game takes place (there’s no running around on the missions, they’re all different sorts of puzzles that require solving - although you do need to move around within the room to work out or discover the solutions). Each room has its Claudia Winkleman substitute host (for anyone who doesn’t know, Claudia is the brilliant presenter of the show - she’s won a BAFTA for her role in the programme. That brilliant) who guides you through what you need to do and how the elements of the game, like the identifying of the traitors, and who is chosen as the murder victim are played (goggle-like blindfolds play an important part).

Just as in the real thing, the job of the players is to find and banish the traitors. And just like the real thing, if there is even one traitor left at the table at the end of the game, they take all the prize ‘money’.

Anyone who is banished or murdered is taken to a separate sitting room, decorated as if it was in the Traitors castle, where they can not only watch the rest of the game unfold on a large screen, but are also required to play a crucial part in the ongoing missions.

It’s all incredibly cleverly done, with the tension suitably ramped up as the game progresses, the pot of gold grows and the seats at the table empty, leading up to the final vote and reveal of the winner - whose prize is to have their name memoralized on the venue’s leaderboard. Then once every three months one of those game winners is randomly selected (I don’t know exactly how) to win a holiday.

The game lasts about two hours and is a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable way to experience a little of what the contestants on the show go through (as well as, for me, acting as a confirming reminder why I would NEVER want to be one of them. I’m simply hopeless at figuring out what the smart strategic move would be when it comes either to the missions or the round table discussion. And apparently completely incapable of sussing out what anyone else is up to during either.)

Although you’re allowed to take pics and videos during the game, it’s tricky to, so I don’t have many. Just this one of the corridor leading to the games rooms

This one one of our team sitting room

Here’s a close up of the screen showing the different in-room camera angles of the round table

And this short video of our host explaining the final round of voting to the three remaining contestants

You can find out more about The Traitors Live Experience, which is in Covent Garden in central London, including ticket prices and booking info HERE.

If you want to find out whether any of the traitors made it to the end of our game, let me know in the comments. And since you ask, I was murdered. About half way through.

I’m lucky enough to be friends with Claudia Winkleman’s fabulous mum, the super-talented and super-smart journalist, Eve Pollard, and can confirm that these

WORDS OF WISDOM

are typical of her fiercely feminist view of the world

THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN…….WATCHING

Talk about tension - see opening story - there’s plenty of it on offer in this new, six-part drama on Netflix which I binge-watched over two entertaining, if at times a little far-fetched, evenings (each episode is just under an hour long).

Eric Bana plays a morose ISB Special Agent, Kyle Turner, in (gorgeously filmed) Yosemite National Park (I really, really want to go there now), nursing a personal tragedy and a resulting drinking habit, whose investigative talents and tracking skills are put to the test in the case of a young girl who falls to her death from the top of the famous El Capitan (gird yourself for a vertigo-inducing opening to the first episode when she tumbles and gets entangled in the ropes of two climbers ascending the giant rock face).

Bana is assigned a rookie partner, a former inner-city LA cop dealing with her own issues, and the pair set off, mostly on his chosen form of transport - horse, to unravel the mystery of the victim’s death which inevitably prizes open all kinds of other cans of unsavoury and unexpected worms, leading to a final twist denouement which I certainly didn’t see coming.

A strong central performance from Eric Bana, a great supporting cast, which includes Sam Neill as Turner’s boss and long time friend, and the glorious sweeping shots of the Yosemite mountains and forests compensate for the occasional lapses into run-of-the-mill who-done-it territory. Overall Untamed is intriguing, engaging, tense without being overly demanding and fab to look at. Nothing wrong with any of that.

You can watch UNTAMED on Netflix

And see the trailer HERE

WHAT’S MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK

I fully appreciate what follows is not only extremely personal, but also, for some (many?) of you, extremely banal, but it has made me happier than might seem seemly.

For the longest time my roof has been acquiring a literally ever-growing covering of moss. It not only looked shabby, but the moss slid off in chunks in heavy rain and blocked the gutters. This weekend I had it jet cleaned. And the difference is….well, you be the judge (in case it’s not clear - really? - the top pic is before, the after is underneath).

It honestly looks like a completely new roof. I’m absurdly thrilled with it.

And just in case any of you find the process of jet washing as satisfying as I do, and are remotely interested in how it was done (I’m obviously assuming you’re even still reading this as this point), here you go

GOOD TO KNOW

I couldn’t do an entire newsletter without anything remotely useful in it. So I haven’t.

You’re going to have to believe me when I say this decidedly odd-sounding way of getting to sleep when you’re struggling, actually does work. I’ve been trying it out for about a month now to be absolutely sure and whilst it’s not instantaneous, every time I’ve done it when I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and my brain has helpfully gone into hyper-mode and stubbornly resisted my efforts to drop off again, I have fallen asleep pretty quickly afterwards. It feels weird, and I’ve no idea why it works (perhaps you can tell me), but trust me when I say it does.

Sticking with brain activity, or in this instance lack of it, I’ll wrap up with this week’s

FRIDAY FUNNY

which I spotted on Instagram and found worryingly hilarious

That’s it for this week. Would you give The Traitors Live Experience a go? And have you done anything similar? This is the second TV show live experience I’ve done - the first was The Great British Bake Off, which you can read about HERE and which I absolutely LOVED. I’m definitely up for trying others if they exist.

There won’t be a newsletter next week because I’m taking my two eldest grand girls away to the seaside for a few days (then being joined by their mums and sisters for a couple more). Don’t think I’ll have too much trouble sleeping after that!

A little like heart would be as appreciated as ever, thank you.

See you again on Aug 7th.