To say that Claudia Winkleman is a mass of excitement and nerves is an understatement. She’s jiggling up and down in her chair and waving her hands around madly.

She might just have finished her stint as presenter for one of the most perennially popular shows on BBC1, Strictly Come Dancing, but she admits her mind has, for some time been on that of her next show – The Traitors.

"I can’t breathe. I can’t exhale,” she exclaims, literally jumping out of her seat. “Even when I was talking about people’s cha cha chas, in my head I was thinking, ‘well, they liked The Traitors last time.’ I am terrified because the success of the first one blew our socks off. We didn’t expect it; me wearing odd gloves, talking to an owl, wondering, ‘Will anyone like it?’”

The Traitors became a word of mouth hit when it first aired in 2022. By the time of the second series last year, pubs were holding screenings of the final, it had become such a hit. “I love making it so much,” says Winkleman who at first said no to the job until she was convinced to watch the original Dutch version of the show and found herself staying up all night to find out what happened. “I just don’t want people to be disappointed because the people who like it are so vocal and fantastic.”

Claudia Winkleman in The Traitors II

The series is based on a board game called Werewolf and it’s a big like a giant murder mystery event. Contestants are divided between Faithfuls and the secret Traitors. The Traitors are allowed to “murder” one person a night, while, during the day, the Faithfuls try and discern who among them are Traitors and ‘banish’ them. The last person or people standing get to win a prize of up to £120,000 – although if there are any Traitors left they are victorious.

It is deliciously evil as it’s filled with people lying to each other and trying to work each other out. A celebrity version has been planned with Jewish star Stephen Fry said to be among those lined up.

Winkleman was speaking before the airing of tonight’s (Jan 1) first episode. Such is the secrecy and intrigue that now surrounds The Traitors that journalists weren’t allowed to write about the first episode until after it aired.

If you watched it (and if you didn’t you may want to look away) you’ll have seen a new cruel twist introduced which meant that three contestants were thrown off the show before they even got to the Scottish castle where the show is filmed.

Alan Cumming with the contestants in The Traitors US S2, 2023

“When they told me about the train I said, ‘I want to be on the train in an outfit!’” says Winkleman. “They said, ‘Stop speaking.’ I love that they assume they know the way the game is going to go and its our job to show them that they don’t. So now they have learned that this is what the game is and the faster they go, the better.

“Better than having three or even two days to bed in and go, ‘Oh my God those marshmallows are so fluffy and watermelon and cheese at breakfast – do I eat them together?’ Obviously, the first meeting I had with the producers, when they asked me to do it, and when they told me I had to send two peclople home straight away, I just refused. I told them, ‘I can’t, I can’t.’ Now I am more like, ‘So, do we push them off the train?’”

For both Winkleman and the producers, part of the fun is not knowing what is going to happen next as they aren’t sure exactly how the contestants will react to the challenges.

“The absolute beauty of The Traitors, is the game itself, and people just play it. I get messages all the time from people playing backstage in theatres or on film sets or in schools or even a traitors wedding which – I agree – is too much.”

Winkleman becomes close to all the contestants and says this series she was given her favourite ever answer from a priest who, when the presenter expressed surprise that she was willing to lie, told the Jewish star, “I’m a priest, not a saint.”

Claudia Winkleman in The Traitors

“I consider the contestants my children, although I’m mean to them,” says Winkleman. “They call me Auntie Claude or Mummy Claude by the end. It’s weird, I want to breastfeed them. It all becomes so high pressured. I can’t you what its like at breakfast and the roundtable when they are decided who to banish.”

She isn’t totally heartless however: “I really cried when somebody was banished this year, but I probably cried in a way that was not healthy. But when two of the camera people came out of the room, they were crying too. Three of us cried together.”

She helped choose who the three starting Traitors will be and this year – after last year ended up with a selection of men all picking other men to join them – she’s gone for an all-girl team.

“They are always the right three,” says Winkleman of the three Traitors. “They could have been a different three, but it was those three, after we spoke into them all, that felt like the right three. So whatever happens, it was the right thing to do. It is the game itself which is extraordinary but having three women feels like a statement after last year when the lads kept picking lads. You’ll see how that works out for us.”

While it is the game which unmistakably brings people back night after night, zany, crazy, excitable fake-tanned Winkleman is a key part of the success of the show with her costumes becoming a story all by themselves. “The producers said, ‘you need to have a murder outfit’ and we took this seriously,” she says. “Then we found some woollen gloves on Amazon for £2.99.”

She also has an owl who she occasionally talks to. “I named him Barry. His handler keeps telling me his name is not Barry, it is Sage, but my dad’s called Barry and so is the owl because he’s very clever.

“I know I am so weird,” she jabbers. “And I’m so orange. I apologise for that. I think that after the first day it [her fake tan] lessens.”

She is desperate not to give stuff away – not to lessen the excitement – but at the same time is so excitable. “I just don’t want this to end!” she sighs.

The Traitors continues on BBC One and on iPlayer