Chase star Shaun Wallace ‘lost thousands’ of pounds when the ITV show started

Mark Labbett, who is known as the Beast, is one of the original chasers

Chase star Shaun Wallace reportedly ‘lost thousands’ when he started taping the show. Shaun and fellow quiz expert Mark Labbett were the first trackers recruited from the national quiz scene when the program was conceived in 2009.

While serving as a criminal defense attorney, Wallace has managed to balance screen time with his legal pursuits. Now 64, he has maintained this tricky balancing act for over a decade. But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the popular TV personalities.

In a recent chat with the Daily Mail, Mark Labbett explained that The Chase’s beginnings proved difficult financially: “Shaun and I lost money in the beginning. We only earned £100 a show and had to take time away from the highest paid. jobs to do that.

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Labbett, now 59, had a range of jobs before Chase, including teaching maths and PE in schools after graduating from Oxford. According to BBC coverage, he had been working on the power circuit since 2007, the Express reports.

Interestingly, Mark also dropped that ITV executives were initially worried about The Chase taking off. According to Labbett, insurers were even called in to assess the potential financial risks.

Fortunately, it only took them two days to conclude that there would be no money problems. It was the inherent tension and nail-biting moments of the early episodes that sealed the deal for what has become a beloved fixture on British TV.

The Chase has become a beloved staple for viewers, attracting between three and five million viewers daily, according to The Mirror. The show’s success has made the Chasers, now six in number, familiar faces in households across the country.

Mark, who undertook a “300-mile round trip” for his initial audition, has since starred in international spin-offs of the show, including versions in Australia and America. Five of the stars also reunited for Beat the Chasers, a one-on-one spin-off of the original programme.

Meanwhile, Shaun continues to balance his legal career with his television commitments, often having to take breaks from the show during trials. This led some fans to mistakenly believe that he was “fired” from The Chase.

Speaking on The Hearing – A Legal Podcast, he clarified: “If I have a long trial then that will take precedence over my footage and The Chase knows that. But then I have to make up my other episodes later. in series.

“So when people see me … they haven’t seen me on TV in a long time … ‘Did he get fired?’ No, I’m going back to my legal career.”