Cliff Notes – We lost £250,000 minutes into new ITV show but we can’t complain
- Friends Chelsey and Briony were the first contestants eliminated from ITV’s The Fortune Hotel series 2, failing to solve a cryptic crossword that determined their fate.
- Despite their early exit, the duo expressed gratitude for the experience, enjoying activities like river tubing and waterfall visits in the Caribbean.
- Host Stephen Mangan teased that the new season will feature more surprises and challenges, promising an exciting twist on the original format.
We lost £250,000 minutes into new ITV show – but we can’t complain
Stephen Mangan has returned to host the second series of The Fortune Hotel (Picture: ITV/Tuesdays Child/Si Johns/Rex Features/Shutterstock)
Warning: spoilers ahead for the first episode of The Fortune Hotel series 2.
It’s never ideal being the first contestants to be eliminated on a primetime gameshow.
However, that’s the reality that friends and cleaning business partners Chelsey and Briony faced when they embarked on the adventure of competing in ITV’s The Fortune Hotel series 2.
The second season of the show, which is hosted by Stephen Mangan, launched tonight, with 11 pairs making their way to a hotel in the Caribbean with the aim of checking in and getting their hands on a briefcase containing a £250,000 fortune.
Sadly, Chelsey and Briony were eliminated before they even had the chance to enter the hotel, as other players were quicker to figure out a cryptic crossword that informed them where they needed to go. Thankfully, they’re still in good spirits about the experience.
‘It weren’t all bad. We can’t really complain. We had an all-inclusive holiday in an absolutely stunning place that not many people would see with your best friend. We got to do things on the island,’ Chelsey, who was 34 at the time of filming, tells Metro. ‘It was surreal, once in a lifetime.’
Chelsey and Briony brought the energy – but sadly their time in the competition was short-lived (Picture: ITV/Tuesdays Child/Si Johns/Rex Features/Shutterstock)
Briony, who was 33 at the time of filming, adds: ‘We went river tubing. Then we went visiting waterfalls, and the sea… The experience looking back on it was fantastic.’
At the start of episode one, the competing pairs have to fill out a crossword that, when solved, tells them that they need to head to the reception desk of the hotel.
The first batch of couples who reach the correct answer and get to the hotel are safe to scheme another day – but the others are all at risk of being eliminated right away.
They each choose a briefcase to open, one of which contains the devastating ‘early checkout card’. Briony and Chelsey decided to select briefcase number two, as it’s both their favourite number. Unfortunately, they had selected the poisoned chalice.
‘Unfortunately, our lucky number just wasn’t lucky,’ Briony quips.
Even though the friends were in the show for a very short amount of time, they still left a big impression with their energetic personalities, racing towards Stephen on the beach after they arrived by boat.
What twists lie in store for The Fortune Hotel series 2?
Host Stephen Mangan gives Metro the lowdown on what to expect in The Fortune Hotel series two… which he promises will have even more shocks than before.
‘It was exciting the first time around because it was a show that had never been done before,’ Stephen tells us about the first series.
‘Sometimes these shows are formats that they’ve tried in other countries and have been a hit, so they know how they work. But we were inventing a brand new game, which is exciting and terrifying at the same time.’
So what’s in store for the second outing? ‘More surprises, more challenges, more epic things happening,’ he promises.
The host adds that if he were a player on the game, he’d be more ‘ruthless’ than fans might expect.
To read more from our interview, click here.
The gutting moment Briony and Chelsey realised they’d been eliminated (Picture: ITV/Tuesdays Child/Si Johns/Rex/Shutterstock)
Before competing in the new series, Briony had already seen the first, and ‘absolutely loved it’.
Just like many other viewers, she watched the show assuming that it was a pretty straightforward game set in an idyllic paradise – but getting to grips with the show firsthand made both of the women realise how much harder it actually is.
‘When you’re in it, and you have got 101 things going on around you, it’s so hard. It’s a different ballgame completely,’ she says, as Chelsey adds: ‘It’s not what we expected at all, but we loved every minute of it.’
The women from Wigan would be up for returning if there was an all-stars edition, especially as they felt as though they didn’t really get a chance to show themselves off fully.
‘People tell us all the time we’re funny,’ Chelsey remarks. ‘We’re such a little act together, we bounce off each other, and we feel like we didn’t have the time to really show that.
The Fortune Hotel continues tonight at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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