‘It's five Chasers versus BRITAIN'

Bradley Walsh and Chasers Anne Hegerty and Jenny Ryan talk to TV Times about their new primetime spin-off

- Steven Perkins

BEAT THE CHASERS

NEW MON-FRI / ITV / 9PM / EPS 1-5 of 5 / QUIZ SHOW

Only a brave person would meddle with a successful quiz format – the last thing you’d want to do is jeopardise what makes the show so special in the first place.

Happily, Beat the Chasers, a new evening spin-off of Bradley Walsh’s hit quiz, keeps all the tension of the original while turning the premise on its head: this time, the contestants are going it alone – and the Chasers are working as a team!

‘The audience were just on the edge of their seat,’ Bradley tells TV Times. ‘I loved every second of it. It’s one to watch, it really is!’

Here, we put a few questions of our own to Chasers Jenny Ryan, 38, and Anne Hegerty, 61, about working together, new tactics, and putting defeat into perspective…

What can you tell us about how the show works?

Anne: It’s now one person doing a Cash Builder, and they have the choice to face between two and five Chasers, who are all sitting up there glaring at them. I’m very good at the glaring! Depending on how many of us they take on, we give them a certain head start in terms of seconds, and then we have something like a Final Chase, in which the questions flip back and forth, and the Chasers are on the buzzer and the contestants are not.

Jenny: It’s very gladiatorial! But Brad’s there, he’s 100% on the contestants’ side. He’s desperate for them to win. It’s very much the five of us versus basically the entirety of the UK!