AN ANGLICAN priest in Cornwall is among the 25 contestants on the new series of The Traitors, which began on BBC One, on New Year’s Day.
In the show — billed as “the ultimate game of deception” and now on its third series — contestants gather at a Scottish castle, where the host, Claudia Winkleman, secretly selects a small number of Traitors, after interviewing each of them. The rest are then designated as Faithfuls; the purpose is to root out the Traitors before they “murder” everyone else. If the Traitors can pass themselves off as Faithfuls, they win a prize of up to £120,000.
Among the contestants this year is the Revd Lisa Coupland, who was ordained priest in the diocese of Truro at Petertide 2023. She served her title at Meneage and in Kerrier deanery, in the Lizard peninsula, and is now Pastoral Care Lead for the deanery.
Introducing herself in the first episode, which was watched by 5.4 million viewers, she said: “My name is Lisa. I am 62-years-old, and I actually think that any self-respecting murder mystery needs to have a priest in it.”
Her plan, however, is to keep her ordained status a secret from the other contestants; so she will not wear a clerical collar.
Ms Coupland said: “My strategy in the game is to blend in with everyone else, so I am not actually going to openly declare that I am an ordained priest.”
Removing her collar before others arrive, she said: “Off-duty now. God forgive me.”
Speaking to the host, Ms Coupland said that she had “had a chat” with God about the show. Asked “Can you lie?” she said: “Yes. I’m a priest, not a saint.”
After the first episode aired, the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is Acting Bishop of Truro, posted “Go Lisa!” on X.
A handful of priests posted on X that they had been approached to take part on the show, but had turned it down.
In a profile for the BBC, published before the first episode, Ms Coupland said that she was “completely obsessed” with murder mysteries, and described herself as an “observer” and “good judge of character”. Referring to her strategy, she said: “I think going in, if I say I’m a priest, I think I’m going to have a target on my back straight away.”
She would be good at spotting liars, she said, because she had a “really good memory”.
Ms Coupland, 62, said in a profile for the diocese at the time of her ordination that, having been born at St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in London, delivered by nuns, “I guess my calling was from birth.”
Raised in the Roman Catholic Church, she had wanted to be a priest since the age of six. “But being a Catholic girl that obviously wasn’t going to happen.”
She moved to Cornwall in 1985. Before her ordination, she worked in sales and marketing for global transnational drugs companies. “Once you’ve worked for a pharmaceuticals firm, you need to atone for your sins,” she said.
Since childhood, she has had a “Franciscan and Celtic kind of spirituality” and a great love of dogs, horses, and the natural world. “But through my early years and into my twenties, I felt a bit let down by my church,” she said.
It was not until the 1990s, when her children attended an Anglican school, that she joined the Church of England. In 2015, while in hospital after a major operation, she started talking to the chaplains and praying with fellow patients.
“I’d heard the calling to be ordained since I was a child, but it was only then that I heeded that call,” she said. “I’d always felt I wasn’t good or clever enough. Every time I’d felt those nudges, I hadn’t recognised them for what they were.”
She said of her ministry: “I love all our congregations, but it’s really about being out in the community, meeting everyday people who don’t necessarily go to church but who still have a faith and want to talk about it.
“I’ve sometimes found the idea of being a priest overwhelming. I’m really looking forward to it but I’m also quite humbled by everything that it represents.”