How The Traitors’ music plays with your emotions

The Traitors uses a deliberately dramatic soundtrack to shape viewers’ emotions, heighten suspense and sometimes misdirect them about what is happening. Composer Sam Watts says the music was designed to be “dark but fun”, helping the programme feel like cinematic drama rather than conventional reality television.

Watts wrote the memorable orchestral theme and around 20 other pieces, layering a full orchestra with electronic sounds; the music is also used in international versions. Producers drew on trailer-music techniques, including the “Braam”, and commissioned additional work from film-music composers Bleeding Fingers. Familiar songs such as “Toxic” and “Mad World” appear in eerie covers made by German production duo 2wei, who had not known the tracks were used on the show.