Ivan Brett

**Ivan Brett** is a contestant from *The Traitors (UK)/Series 1*.

## Profile

*Retrieved from BBC:*

**Name:** Ivan

**Age:** 32

**Job title:** Author

**Location:** Cornwall

**Why did you apply to be on this brand-new reality series? What interested you in the concept?**
I'm obsessed with games, and I recently wrote a couple of books full of hundreds of games that groups of friends or families would play together. I’m fixated on the way that games fit together and strategies on how to win. Most of my job is running games sessions, I run big games nights. I'm always writing them and never playing them, I feel like I've built up this huge reservoir of strategies and opportunities, but I’ve never got a chance to try them all out. This is a lifelong love mixed with a frustration that I never get to actually play.

**What was your motivation for wanting to take part?**
When you get to a certain age people think that games and play are very surface level and childish. I suppose that's not how I see it, I often see play as a safe space to practice real life and to try new realities and new personalities. To find new ways of interacting with people in a safe space before you actually enter into the quite terrifying real world, where you can make mistakes and upset people. There are so many profound impacts of living a playful childhood and then taking that through to adulthood.

**What do you think you’ll bring to the game?**
I think I will bring a lot of fun. I will get into things and bring a huge amount of enthusiasm and hopefully creative solutions. I'm going to try and play the game very differently from other people. Even though I'll belong to either the Faithfuls or the Traitors, I’ll really be playing for myself. I think over a fun and enthusiastic and creative veneer, I'm going to be trying to solve it as I go along.

**Do you have a game plan?**
Yes, I do. I have a strong nine-point plan. I have zero confidence that it's going to work because at base, this game is chaos. You cannot control it and there is no winning strategy.

**If you're a Faithful, what do you think your game plan will be? How good are you at spotting a liar?**
Instead of spotting lying, I think I'm going to be good at analysing votes and things like that, if I'm in for long enough to have a few days’ worth of people being voted for. I've got a really bad memory, but I have a memory technique that I've been practising that lets me memorise lists of things, so I'm going to memorise as many votes as I can during that council. It's called memory palace, Derren Brown uses it, I'm not very good at it but I'm going to try. This would enable me to look at who voted for who and then start making some conclusions based on that. I think I'll bring a bit more of a mathematical approach to trying to eliminate people and trying to work out who's who and who to trust.

**If you are a Traitor, how would you feel? How good is your poker face?**
I smile at everything. I smile from telling the truth and I smile if I'm lying. I think I always look like I'm lying which means that I'm probably going to get doubted and suspected really early. So, I reckon people are going to think I'm telling lies from the very beginning.

**If you win the prize money, what will you spend it on?**
About five years ago, I proposed to my fiancé but made a real bodge of it. I thought it'd be really cute to do it in a modern way and not get down on one knee, but it didn't work. She did say yes but I hate it and I can't think about it without cringing. We’ve been engaged for ages and found all sorts of reasons not to get married. Not least the fact that my mum was really ill with ovarian cancer, and it didn't feel right. I think what I'm going to do if I win the money is take Amy halfway across the world and get married somewhere wonderful with a big sunset.

## Game History

 Armoury Visit
 Voted With Group?
 Votes Received

## References

1. ↑ The Traitors - Meet the contestants | BBC Media Centre — November 25, 2022