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IT ALL STARTED back in 2017, when a scientist from Dublin appeared on the hugely popular ITV quiz show The Chase.
Darragh Ennis bested Paul ‘The Sinnerman’ Sinha in the head-to-head battle and dragged his team to victory.
However, his share of the win was cut by his teammates who all took lower cash offers in order to boost their chances of getting to the final.
A GoFundMe campaign was started to compensate Ennis, who requested that any money raised should go to charity.
Three years later, Ennis again appeared on The Chase – but this time as Darragh ‘The Menace’ Ennis, one of the quiz specialists who face off against the contestants and who are known as the ‘chasers’.
Speaking to The Journal ahead of bringing his new quiz tour to Ireland, Ennis said he had no say in his on-screen persona, such as his bola tie.
“They asked had I any wardrobe preferences, and I said no, I didn’t care.
Well, what I actually said was that I’d wear a chicken suit if you gave me the job.
Ennis said he only realised he had been given the nickname “The Menace” when host Bradley Walsh said it as he walked out on set.
He adds that the production team initially wanted him to be “mean”.
“But I was no good at it, so they just said, ‘be yourself’.”
Ennis applied to be on the show back in 2017 because he needed a back door for his new house – the sum he won was enough to purchase the door.
But a couple of weeks later, he received a phone call asking him if he wanted to interview to be one of the chasers.
It kind of just happened by accident, really.
Ennis said it was a long process, involving screen tests and general knowledge assessments, and it was around 18 months later before he recorded his first episode.
“They identified areas I needed to work on, and I worked on those in the background while I was still working in the lab as a scientist.”
Ennis has a PhD in Biology from Maynooth University and went on to work in Oxford University’s biochemistry department as a laboratory manager and a post-doctoral researcher in Neuroscience.
Ennis no longer works in the lab as a scientist, and he said he misses working in science but that he is “trying to merge the two”.
He has written a science book and has another one coming out next year, he hosts a science podcast called “A Normie meets a Nerd” and he is hoping to bring science documentaries to TV.
“I would really love to bring to Irish or UK television a proper science show for adults,” said Ennis. “There aren’t any, there’s only nature programs.”
And while Ennis has a busy schedule, with a new iteration of The Chase called ‘The Chase Around the World’ now airing on Virgin Media, he says he thinks of his mother Violet if he “ever starts feeling tired or that I work too hard”.
“Like most working-class people her age, my mother Violet left school quite young,” said Ennis.
“She did her Leaving Cert when I was a kid, and she had five children at the time and went on to university.
“She was always an inspiration and at one point, she ended up having to work two jobs to keep everything together.
“If I ever feel tired, I just think of my poor mom, with five kids and working two jobs, and I work in a job that is genuinely very easy and I really like it.”
For anyone thinking of applying to be on The Chase, Ennis says there is “there’s no magic formula” to winning.
“The only thing I would say is that the word ‘pass’ has only been a correct answer on The Chase once – don’t say ‘pass’, say something.
“But there’s no magic formula, you just need to work as a team on the show, get as many questions right as you can, and try and put the chaser under pressure.”
Ennis adds that he is “really competitive” on the show and when asked if he ever feels bad about winning, he says “not at all”.
“If you want to win, play better.
“You would never ask a footballer or a hurler, ‘do you ever feel bad for the competitor?’”
He noted that the contestants have certain advantages.
“If they play well enough, they will win,” said Ennis. “It’s really rare that a team plays brilliantly and loses.
“Sometimes it happens, but most of the time, if I beat a team, it’s because they’ve made mistakes, or they’ve misjudged things, or they’ve been too slow.”
Meanwhile, there can be certain downsides to his newfound fame.
Ennis says he has had “some really nasty people make threats to me online”.
“Never in person, strangely, because I’m quite a big guy.
“People are very nice to me in person, but I don’t get anything like the volume of it that Jenny Ryan does.”
He said fellow chaser Jenny ‘The Vixen’ Ryan “probably gets ten times more abuse than I do”.
“They’re usually misogynistic, they’re usually cowards, and they will go after a woman much more than a man.
“I ignore them online, they’re pathetic, and I think just don’t give them any oxygen.
“My life is far too happy and far too short to sit engaging with idiots.”
Ennis is now bringing “The Menace Quiz” to Ireland.
He said it’s not “a mega-competitive serious quiz” but instead a “fun night out that a quiz happens in”.
“It’s all run on an app because this stops people cheating, and that’s the bane of quizzes.
“I used to do a cash prize, but people took it too seriously so now I give a stupendously terrible trophy.”
He said the audience also gets to quiz him and “see if they can trip me up”.
Meanwhile, Ennis said he has found there to be “two big differences hosting these shows in the UK versus in Ireland”.
While people in the UK turn up on time, ready to go, Ennis says that in Ireland, “without fail, teams will come in up to 25 minutes late and be angry that you’ve started at the time you’ve said you were going to start at”.
He adds that the other difference is that the “craic we have is way higher in Ireland”.
“Irish people are way less worried about offending you a little bit.
“They’ll ask you something personal or funny, whereas the English crowd would tend to be a bit more reserved.
“Unless you’re in Liverpool, of course, and then they’ll ask anything.”
Ennis adds that the “main thing when hosting a quiz is to pitch it to your audience”.
“If your audience are all 70, don’t be asking them about Sabrina Carpenter, you need to find the balance.”
Ennis said he also ensures there are questions that make people say, ‘oh, really?’.
“A good quiz lets people come out of it going, ‘that was a really good question’, or ‘that’s a really good fact’.
“It shouldn’t just be, what’s the capital of Malawi?
“Have a few of those questions, it’s fine, but there should be other ones that you can figure out the answer to if you just think about it.”
The Menace Quiz is coming to Kildare, Wexford, Dublin, Kerry, Galway, Drogheda and Limerick in September. Tickets can be bought on Ennis’s website or direct from the venues.
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