GAME ON
The Chase’s ‘arrogant’ Mark Labbett auditioned for Ant and Dec gameshow before joining show, reveals boss
THE Chase's Mark Labbett was once turned down for a quiz show hosted by Ant and Dec as he was deemed "too arrogant".
Mark - aka The Beast - auditioned for the Geordie duo's PokerFace, which saw contestants try and bluff their way to winning £1million.
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The star, 56, had auditioned to be a player on the ITV programme, but bosses feared that viewers wouldn't warm to him.
Recalling his audition, TV entertainment executive producer Sue Allison said: "I remember - I'm sure he won't mind me saying this - thinking at the time, 'Oh, he's far too arrogant for to be on PokerFace. What if he wins? No one is going to want him to win a million pounds!'"
Mark was turned down for PokerFace, which ran on ITV from 2006 to 2007, however his audition stuck in Sue's mind when they were casting Chasers for The Chase.
Sue added during the podcast: "His name came up for this and were like, 'Ooh, that was that guy. He was brilliant. This is actually perfect for him'.
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"I've still got his audition tape somewhere. He came in, in this huge great coat that almost came down to the floor. He looked like Hagrid or something!
"He was enormous, just enormous! I can't remember exactly what he said but it was something like, 'They call me The Beast'.
"I was like, 'Oh my God, don't bother staying for the auditions - you're in!'"
Mark filmed the pilot series of The Chase alongside Shaun Wallace and the pair were hired.
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Next came Ann Hegerty, who wrote to the show's bosses to offer her services, explaining that she had once chased off muggers.
The trio were later joined by Chasers Jenny Ryan, Paul Sinha and - most recently - Darragh Ennis.
But bosses were certain that The Chase would not be the same as the BBC's Egg Heads.
Sue explains: "Egg Heads was obviously people being themselves, wearing versions of their own clothes and having pleasant personalities.
"The very nature of [The Chase] is the idea that this is the baddie coming to get you. So we had to make those characters larger than life. But also not make it feel ridiculous and over the top, staged an phoney."
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She went on to add: "All of The Chasers do really well. It is a sort of hyped up version of themselves
"They're not completely being somebody else. They are the panto baddies."
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