Atholl and John for The Fortune Hotel S2 / ITV
Relationship: Father and son
Ages: 30 and 58
Occupations: Waiter and Retired police officer
From: Scottish Borders
How would you describe yourselves?
John: “Calm under pressure.”
Atholl: “Animated, bold and sassy. My dad is the cool, calm, collected one that will try and level things out and then if people get a bit too lairy it will be me they deal with! I’m the storm, he’s the calm.”
Did you have a strategy going in to the competition?
Atholl: “My tactic has always been to listen and observe.”
John: “You build information up; you can identify people you can work with and then people that are severe competition who you’ll look to get rid of.”
How important were alliances?
Atholl: “An alliance will only get you so far, eventually someone is going to betray someone. We’re all there for one reason and the reason is to win the money.”
John: “There’s only got to be one winner! So ultimately everyone is in competition but if there are people you can work with to get you further along, then that’s no bad thing!”
Were you able to tell when other contestants were bluffing?
John: “You can formulate a plan from speaking to everyone. Genuinely you find when you ask someone a question, ‘have you got the money?’ the normal reaction is to say no… so you can read from that and their response. One pair we asked said ‘no but we have our suspicions’ and that immediately made us think they had the money.”
The Fortune Hotel continues Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
