Since The Chase first appeared on our televisions in 2009, there have been unconfirmed rumours of foul play.
Given that the Chasers, Anne Hegerty, Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Paul Sinha, Jenny Ryan, and Darragh Ennis, can seemingly answer any question, no matter how narrow or obscure, at a rapid pace, ITV viewers have inferred, however wrongly, that they cheat.
One main explanation for The Chasers’ ongoing success is that host Bradley Walsh, 63, deliberately reads their questions faster than the competition’.
However, Anne, 65, categorically denied any such charges.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Anne began. ‘They’ve gone over it with a stopwatch. What he does is, when we get closer to the end, his voice sometimes gets more high-pitched.
‘It may sound as if he’s speeding up, but actually, he’s reading as fast as he can for both the Chasers and the contestants while still being actually understandable. That’s how he does that.’
She also completely refutes accusations. The Chasers are given simpler questions, however the creators agree that the balance is not always ‘exactly perfect.’
Anne explained: ‘There are two sets of questions. The question setters then go through them very carefully to make sure that they’re balanced in difficulty. The producers then go through them to make sure they’re balanced in difficulty. Maybe sometimes they don’t get it completely right but they’re doing their best. It’s all completely above board.
‘The contestants get offered a choice of which set of questions they want; whichever set they asked for, A or B, that’s the one that gets loaded into the computer.’
The Chasers face more than just charges of cheating. Shaun recently had to explain himself when trolls requested his dismissal for not knowing the hue of Marge’s hair on The Simpsons.
Anne stated that Shaun is ‘absolutely happy and content’ and disclosed her coping method for when social media, which she characterised as a ‘cesspit of misery,’ becomes too much.
‘We have all learned basically to ignore the trolls. And if people are giving us a hard time we just come off social media for a bit and just ignore it,’ Anne sagely said.
‘If anyone’s having a hard time, and we all know it could be any of us – any of us might have had a bad game and be being abused online – we just check in on each other by Whatsapp or Messenger and ask, “Are you okay? Do you need to talk?” And if we’re physically there [in the studio] we probably go into each other’s dressing rooms.’
She also quipped that she now knows her way around a blockchain, which means, as she explained ‘when you block a person you block every single person that follows them. That way I can get rid of hundreds of people in the space of five minutes.’
‘But people have short memories,’ she continued. ‘Six months late they can’t even remember why they were abusing you. So I’m not really worried.’
Anne is concerned that long-time presenter Bradley may be forced to leave the show owing to several TV obligations. Bradley, the UK’s richest single TV presenter, has lately begun fronting the Gladiators remake alongside his son, Barney.
‘I remember saying to him once that my great fear that you’re gonna have a heart attack over work,’ she recalled. ‘And he said, “Oh, but I love it.”If you love what you’re doing then isn’t so stressful.
‘I know that Gladiators, when it launched last week got massive ratings, which is terrific for Bradley. But it does also mean: “Oh, for goodness sake is he going to take on more and more other work” and when are we going to be able to fit The Chase around that?
‘But at the same time, it’s Bradley. One always wants to see him do well.’
When pressed, Anne indicated that if Bradley were to go, she would choose actor and comedian Omid Djalili as his successor.
She said: ‘I can imagine Omid Djalili doing it. It’d be quite fun. Who else? Maybe Stephen Mulhern but I think Omid is probably my preference. But, you know, Bradley is irreplaceable: let’s face it.’
Stephen Fry, on the other hand, would be a more welcome addition to the famed game show, and Anne would be delighted to collaborate with him on the celebrity spin-off.
“Wouldn’t that be brilliant?” She commented.
When asked if Stephen might defeat her, Anne said he could give her a run for her money.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I mean, he knows an awful lot. It might depend on what specific subjects come up.
‘I’m the more experienced quizzer I might be a little better at being able to tell what kind of quiz questions might go to come on. But it would be lovely to see Stephen certainly.’
We second that.
Beat the Chasers airs weekly on Fridays at 9 pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
Source My Celebrity Life.