ITV The Chase's Darragh Ennis makes 'awful' admission as he lifts lid on show secrets

The Chase's Darragh Ennis has lifted the lid on behind-the-scenes secrets from the ITV quiz show. The quizzer, who is originally from Dublin, first appeared as a contestant in 2017.

Darragh earned £9,000 in his cash builder round and helped defeat chaser Paul Sinha in the final chase. He and three other teammates won £6,300 in total. His impressive performance led to him becoming the sixth chaser in 2020, alongside Paul Sinha, Jenny Ryan, Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace and Anne Hegerty.

Darragh was a guest recently on JaackMaate’s Happy Hour podcast, hosted by YouTubers Jack Dean and Stevie White. Originally from Dublin, Darragh explained he doesn’t normally drink Guinness in England but makes an exception for one Liverpool pub.

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He was asked by the hosts about a habit viewers have spotted, where he will exclaim "cheese" if he needs to quickly answer an easier question on Beat the Chasers before the time runs out. Darragh explained, although it started as a running joke, there is a logic to it. He said: “The worst thing you can say is pass. Pass has only been a correct answer on The Chase once in 15 years.

“The level one questions have a limited number of answers. So often, a very common question is, which dairy product? And it's almost always cheese.

“It's almost always cheese. It just is. So we kind of have a running joke - Mark shouted it out in Beat the Chasers once and we all thought it was very funny.

“So now, if I'm down to one second and I need to shout an answer, I just shout cheese before I even hear the question because there's about a 0. 1% chance it'll be right. And if it ever is, it'll be hilarious.”

Darragh also revealed that contestants can argue against a given answer, which can cause the recording of the show to grind to a halt. He said: “We have independent adjudicators on set all the time.

“There's a company called Beyond Dispute and a wonderful woman called Olivia who does that. She's appointed to oversee everything.

"And if either side asks, 'I want to get that checked', then she, independent of the producers and the question setters, verifies whether the answer's correct or not. They just pause recording and everything has to be fair. We don't care how long it takes, it has to be fair and it has to be right.

“And we tell everybody, as a contestant, you are told, if you're not happy with a question, if you think your answer's right and you're told it's wrong, say it straight away, because we want to cut the recording.

“It's a lot easier editing wise, to cut record and then they go and check it. Even in the end games when it's against the clock, it doesn't matter when it is.”

Darragh said contestants questioning the answers happens “rarely”, but himself and the other chasers are far more frequent in complaining about the questions.

He said: “There's a question setting team, who have the horrible job of setting questions for us, because we never stop complaining. We're awful. We really are. I'd say, actually, do you know what, I don't think that's quite right, or I think my answer is also correct in a way.

“It's hard setting quiz questions. Sometimes, especially if you're not an expert in the subject, there can be a second answer and Brad has like a list of acceptable answers that he has to read through.”