Love The Traitors? The Fortune Hotel is your next reality fix
Plus: A sleeper hit podcast, a stunning new piece of theatre, and a classic opera with a New Zealand twist.
Welcome back for another round of Rec Room goodies, and this week we’re covering all the cultural bases. Podcasts! Theatre! A TV show where people swap suitcases! Sure, TVNZ’s new reality series The Fortune Hotel might not hit the cultural and creative heights of some of our other more recs this week, but it was still a lovely time. Enjoy!
TVNZ’s new reality series is more obsessed with luggage than Border Patrol
What’s all this then?
Pack your bag and check into The Fortune Hotel, TVNZ+’s curious new reality series. Hosted by “hotel manager” Stephen Mangan (Green Wing, The Split), the show sees ten British couples travel to the Caribbean, where each pair is given a suitcase on arrival. Only one case contains the cash prize of £250,000, and as the game unfolds, the couples must win challenges to control the game and work out who among them holds the prize case.
Players need to find the cash case and keep hold of it to win the money. They must also avoid their case being stolen or swapped by another team, or even worse, ending up with the cursed case that contains the “early check out” card. It’s a game of bluff and banter, as couples try to avoid suspicion while simultaneously trying to get their hands on the winning case.
What’s good?
The Fortune Hotel is a mish-mash of a variety of TV shows, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s got the secret suitcases of Deal or No Deal, the sea and sun of Love Island, the five star hotel glamour of White Lotus and the wacky physical challenges of The Amazing Race. It’s more obsessed with luggage than Border Patrol, but mostly, it feels like The Traitors on vacation. The dark, foreboding Scottish castle setting of The Traitors has been replaced by the bright Caribbean sunshine, and Claudia Winkleman’s glorious fringe swapped out for Stephen Mangan’s cheery Hawaiian shirts.
And why not? The Traitors is arguably the best reality show of all, and Fortune Hotel leans in hard to its popular format. It too features a group of likeable, eclectic strangers who are chucked together in a remote place, and who know they can’t trust one another: “watch the people, not the cases,” Mangan continually warns.
Only one couple has the £250,000 in their suitcase, and discovering you hold the cash is both a blessing and a curse. “I knew I could smell a handbag,” Joanne squeals when she opens her case full of money, but her son Will is worried his mother’s joy will betray them to the treasure hunters.
Secrecy and trust are key here, as the players overthink every innocent move from their competition. Which couple is too eager to swap their case? Who’s behaving suspiciously and which couple appears too happy, even though they’re filming a TV show in a tropical paradise?
Like The Traitors, The Fortune Hotel casts its contestants well. There’s a great mix of everyday people of different backgrounds and ages, from the barrister skilled in bluffing and manipulating to the mother and daughter who inexplicably carry an inflatable flamingo everywhere. My favourite pairing from episode one was Lesley and Gary, who when it seemed like they might be sent home just as the game began, immediately looked on the bright side. “At least the room’s nice,” Lesley said cheerfully.
What’s not so good
Is luggage exciting? Not unless you’re a sniffer dog. The Fortune Hotel is low stakes entertainment, and initially, the challenges aren't that challenging and there’s not a lot of tension. It’s missing the atmospheric theatrics of The Traitors, but as the game unfolds further and alliances begin to form, The Fortune Hotel could very much turn out to be much more than your average holiday.
Verdict: Watch it
The Fortune Hotel is a ray of reality sunshine in the middle of winter. Stephen Mangan is a jaunty host, the show features a bunch of likeable characters, and it’s a fun piece of television to escape into.
The Fortune Hotel screens on Thursdays at 8.30pm on TVNZ2 and streams on TVNZ+.
A good day in the capital
Thank you to everyone who supported The Spinoff Welly 500 over the last couple of weeks. Not only did we reach our target in record time, but the additional donations and messages of support make it possible for us to sustain and grow our work in Wellington. You can check out our recent Welly coverage here.
Why you should listen to: Cinema Bing Bong (podcast)
Yes the name might throw you off but Cinema Bing Bong is the best new local podcast. Hosted by best friends Amelia Berry (Amamelia, winner of best electronic artist at the Aotearoa Music Awards last week) and Rebecca K Reilly (author of Greta & Valdin), Cinema Bing Bong is a podcast for people who love movies but don’t love listening to the same types of men talk about movies. They’re only a few episodes in but they’re long (about two hours each), cover a couple of key films each episode and are extremely conversational. If you’ve ever enjoyed Las Culturistas, you’ll enjoy Cinema Bing Bong. A sleeper hit that’s quite genuinely just two best friends recording their funny film discussions and releasing them as polished podcast episodes (Berry is a sound engineer, which helps). 10/10. / Mad Chapman
Why you should watch: Transmission Beta (Circa Theatre, Wellington)
Claire Mabey’s evocative review of Transmission Beta – Stuart McKenzie and Miranda Harcourt’s piece of verbatim theatre that tracks the Covid years – had me wishing I was in Wellington to see it in person. “It’s weird how the very recent past can feel so far away,” Claire wrote this week. “As I watched the show unfold it felt like a well-stashed box had been pulled out from under the bed and was being unpacked, each item held to the light. Even while it seems like half the people I know have Covid right now, the dramatic interruptions of the last few years seem a world away from the dramatic interruptions of the present. This is the thing with living inside history: it doesn’t stop to let you reflect. And that’s the inherent value of verbatim theatre: it gives space and time to glance over our shoulders and observe what happened with the ironic gaze of hindsight.”
More pop culture news from The Spinoff:
Don’t miss all the new shows streaming this week, including Location Location Location presenter Phil Spencer’s new show about New Zealand homes.
Alex Casey’s magnificent power rankings captures all the chaos of week two of Married at First Sight NZ.
I loved reading Vera Ellen’s ideal listening on this week’s perfect weekend playlist, and following it up with Matt Heath’s chaotic trip down memory lane in My Life in TV.
Why you should watch: Le Comte Ory (Wellington and Christchurch)
I’ve never been to the opera before, so I was curious to read Sam Brooks’ review of Le Comte Ory, the Rossini comedic opera that’s been given a unique New Zealand twist. “Over the past few years, NZ Opera has done a pretty admirable job of dragging the canon into the present. Opera is an artform that is unlikely to die anytime soon, and along with the ballet, it’s one of the few chances that New Zealand audiences get to see inventive, homegrown, spectacle,” Sam writes. “Pleasant, funny, and a chance to see something new – I’ve personally experienced enough Marriages and Barbers for a lifetime – but the effort is perhaps worth more than the story.”
Before we pop off…
Before we pop off:
Terrible taste in husbands, excellent taste in turtleneck jumpers: Gail Platt (played by Helen Worth) is leaving Coronation Street after 50 glorious years on the cobbles.
The first trailer for New Zealand film Bookworm (starring Elijah Wood and filmed in Canterbury) has dropped, and it looks like a delight.
Cillian Murphy will return as Tommy Shelby in Netflix’s Peaky Blinders movie, which starts production later this year.
In a victory for old and scraggly things everywhere, the Northern rātā is voted New Zealand tree of the year.
Never thought I’d find out Demi Moore’s dog’s thoughts about Tom Holland’s performance in Romeo and Juliet, but here we are.
And finally, this delicious Dunedin jelly lamb story has more layers than…well, a jelly lamb.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.
