THE CHASE has been Britain’s ­biggest quiz show for 15 years and is still chasing the ratings.

As many as three million watch daily. Some 9,000 contestants have challenged the egghead Chasers on the ITV show, winning often handsome sums of cash.

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More than 9,000 contestants have appeared on ITV hit show The Chase over the past 15 yearsCredit: ITV

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Host Bradley Walsh is often left speechless by the bizarre answers given by contestantsCredit: The Chase/ITV
More than 2,200 episodes have aired, with 235,000 questions asked, as the format has also spawned spin-offs.

Contestants play against one of a team of six pro quizzers – the Chasers – to build up a fat cash prize.

They begin with the Cash Builder, adding to their pot by answering questions, then take turns against the Chaser before whichever contestants are left to face the egghead in the Final Chase – a race to answer as many questions as possible in a set time.

Host Bradley Walsh said: “Each year we make 210 Chases, 16 Celebrity Chases and 16 Beat The Chasers [when all six play].

“It seems like I’m on your screen all the time!”

The Chasers each have a nick-name, chosen by Bradley, and are celebrities. There’s Mark “The Beast” Labbett, Darragh “The Menace” Ennis, Anne “The Governess” Hegerty, Jenny “The Vixen” Ryan, Shaun “The Dark Destroyer” Wallace and Paul “The Sinnerman” Sinha.

Bradley says: “The one I have most fun with is Shaun. We love football, we’re the same age as well. I adore him.

“They all sort of have pops at me but a bit of self-deprecating humour never hurt.”

Bradley is at his best when joined by celebrity pals for the star-studded editions.

But he says: “As soon as you mention the Chasers, they freeze. They panic, they want to be able to get it right.

“I’ve had a lot of clever celebrities come on who have failed at the first hurdle. This is the toughest thing on telly.”

The show will celebrate 15 years at the top with a special one-off episode on September 2.

Here, FELICITY CROSS and JESS LESTER look back at some of The Chase’s biggest moments . . .

THE STARS

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Mark Labbatt, known as The Beast, is The Chase’s best known star who has featured in versions abroad
IT’S not just the contestants who have left The Chase a little bit richer.

The quiz’s resident brainboxes – the Chasers – are making a mint as household names, and that’s not only down to their ITV fees.

MARK LABBETT has revealed the team are paid a flat rate per appearance, but in most shows only one of them takes part – except for in Beat The Chasers, when all six are on duty.

He joked: “If I could get away with it, I’d purge half of them because the fewer Chasers there are, the more money I get!”

But the rivalry is friendly and the quiz gurus have become celebrities in their own right, with many landing lucrative side-projects.

Mark, 55, is one of the show’s original Chasers and is its biggest success story. He now also stars on the US and Australian versions.

The former maths teacher’s love life has attracted attention too.

In 2014, aged 49, he married second cousin Katie, then 22. They share a son but split in 2020.

More recently, he enjoyed a year-long fling with TV host Hayley Palmer and they posed for photoshoots.

ANNE HEGERTY rivals Mark’s star power and has become hugely popular since the former proof reader joined the show in 2010 – even appearing on I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! in 2018.

Anne, 66, also earns a packet in panto and has found other TV work hosting ITV quiz Britain’s Brightest Family.

She learned on TV’s DNA Journey that she is a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II.

PAUL SINHA, who is also a stand-up comic, joined in 2011 and the 54-year-old has gone on to host his own ITV quiz, TV Showdown, and appeared on Channel 4 favourite Taskmaster in 2019.

Fun-loving JENNY RYAN proved a big hit with fans after being recommended by Anne in 2015 for her turns on everything from University Challenge to QI, where she was one of its researchers, known as elves – and Channel 4 gameshow Fifteen To One.

Jenny, 42, also finished third on The X Factor: Celebrity, in 2019.

Ex-barrister SHAUN WALLACE, 64, who signed up in 2009, won Mastermind in 2004, and the next year was an independent candidate at the General Election but failed to win a seat in the Commons.

DARRAGH ENNIS, 43, joined in 2020 and his Chasers debut was seen by a record 4.9million viewers.

In 2017 he had been a contestant on the show, and played a blinder, but was let down by his teammates.

Fans were so gutted, they set up a GoFundMe page for him.

10 Facts about The Chase

HERE are ten fun facts about The Chase that we bet you never knew . . .

1) The biggest individual win was £80,000, when Dan defeated Chaser Jenny in August 2022. Previous top players include Eden, who beat egghead Darragh to win £75,000 in August 2021, and Judith, who won £70,000 against hotshot Jenny in 2019.

2) Each episode takes two hours to film and the team get through as many as 12 episodes across four days of filming.

3) Chasers Jenny and Anne are best friends away from the show and are said to be regular local quiz participants together on a Monday night.

4) The show has a live audience for only special episodes such as the celebrity editions.

5) Three question-setters are on hand at all times but there are eight on the team from all sorts of backgrounds, including Times quiz-setter Olav Bjortomt, a Brit of Norwegian-Filipino descent, who is the No1 quizzer in the world.

6) The question-setters deliberately write posers to make show host Bradley Walsh laugh.

7) The Chase gets through 120 questions a day, and to ensure they don’t repeat a question, they have a database of every one used.

8) Bradley has a personal bowl of sweets to tuck into between takes, and when he’s finished he is known to head into the audience to share them.

9) If Bradley messes up on a question in the Final Chase, studio lawyers step in, the clock is paused, and the question is re-asked from the split second when the previous one ended.

10) The best Chasers can answer as many as 25 questions in two minutes.

THE CELEBS

VIEWERS love The Chase’s celebrity specials because they deliver moments of TV gold alongside the usual quizzing action.

Towie dimwit JOEY ESSEX had host Bradley in stitches when he was a celebrity contestant in 2017, only for the reality star to admit that he had never even watched the show before and had not bothered “doing any revision”.

No surprises, then, that he lost when he went up for £100,000 against top Chaser Anne.

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Joey Essex took on The Chase for charity and his efforts ended up in disasterCredit: Rex
That same year, Pub Landlord funnyman AL MURRAY seemed to have bagged an impressive £80k for charity in the early Cash Builder rounds.

He screamed for joy when he won – and ran round the studio, lifting up Bradley and throwing him in the air – only for his team to later lose all the money in the final round against Paul.

Fans later claimed the Chaser had been given “far easier questions”.

Fans chuckled when Chaser Anne got flirty with contestant DAVID HAYE as the boxing champ appeared on the show in 2015.

She declared she wanted to “lick him all over”. The comedy moment left Bradley gagging in mock despair.

In 2018, entertainer DAVID GRANT went head-to-head with Chaser Jenny, which saw the cast descend into what was later dubbed the Great Pizza Debate – arguing over which toppings are best.

Bradley admitted he thought pineapple featured on a margherita, and was disgusted when TV doctor PIXIE McKENNA said she liked a fiorentina with an egg.

Bradley quipped: “That’s just an egg on toast.”

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Pub Landlord Al Murray celebrated too early and ended up losing all the cashCredit: Rex

On another occasion, Bradley reckoned he was hallucinating while watching Basil Brush on the show in 2022 – as the little red fox took on Chaser Darragh.

Bradley struggled to retain his composure then went for a lie down on set, saying: “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

He and contestant SCOTT MILLS lost it laughing in 2016 when the Radio 2 DJ was asked to identify the name of a satirical US presidential candidate who went by spoof moniker Deez Nuts.

He also got the giggles when reading an innuendo-laden question to singer LESLEY GARRETT about a love letter in which Navy hero Admiral Nelson said he “loved a woman so much he couldn’t touch his, a) Port b) Pudding c) Plums.”

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Strictly star Joe Sugg had one of the most costly gaffes ever on The ChaseCredit: ITV
Meanwhile social media sensation JOE SUGG almost made show history when he was on the brink of landing £213,000 with his team.

But he ended up losing the lot when he mispronounced film star WILL FERRELL’s name as Will Farrell.

Viewers were later in uproar, with one writing online: “That Will Ferrell & Will Farrell situation was absolutely ridiculous – pretty obvious who he was saying?”

Another exclaimed: “Oh p*** off, The Chase. Thought they were going to win that £213,000. They were fab! If only they’d said Ferrell instead of Farrall . . . ”

And one drama on the show that still riles viewers to this day was when actor MICHAEL SHEEN, McFly rocker DANNY JONES, former BBC war reporter and politician MARTIN BELL and Sky News presenter SARAH-JANE MEE took on Chaser Mark.

Danny and Martin were abysmal, and critics raced to slate them both online, with one writing: “This is painful to watch. Are these people really this stupid?”

It left movie star Michael with a lot of lifting to do in the final round – boosting his team’s jackpot to £72,000.

But he was pipped to the post by rival Mark, who then bragged: “It was my day today.”

Viewers hit back: “You won and denied charities 72k! You must be very proud.”

THE QUESTIONS

IF you think you could defeat The Dark Destroyer or beat The Beast, here’s your chance to prove it.

We’ve rounded up a selection of questions that were so tricky they stumped the Chasers in the Final Chase.

So, how many would you have got right?

1) Mrs Wilberforce is the old lady in what Ealing comedy film?

2) Kirrin Island is the setting in books by which children’s author?

3) Kay Prosper is the British star of what combat sport?

4) & Who played Amy Silver in the TV drama series Vigil?

5) How many times did Yuri Gagarin orbit the Earth in Vostok 1?

6) Actress Joyce Frankenberg is better known by what name?

7) A waste bin features on the logo of what UK charity?

8) The town of Hemel Hempstead is on what canal?

9) In accounting, PBT stands for Profit Before… what?

10) Euskara Batua is the standard form of what Iberian language?

11) Which American won seven Olympic swimming golds in 1972?

12) Defy is a men’s fragrance by what US fashion house?

13) In the 1985 US film, which group of friends never say die?