He's best known for his beastly persona on The Chase, but Mark Labbett was almost on another show. It has been revealed that he was turned down for a quiz show hosted by Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.
Mark, or The Beast as he's known to fans of the ITV show fronted by Bradley Walsh, auditioned for the Geordie duo's PokerFace, which saw contestants try and bluff their way to winning £1m and aired for 14 episodes between 2006 and 2007.
The 56-year-old TV star had auditioned to be a player on the programme, which also aired on ITV, but bosses deemed him 'too arrogant' and feared that viewers wouldn't warm to him.
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Recalling his audition, TV entertainment executive producer Sue Allison said during the TV Show and Tell podcast: "I remember - I'm sure he won't mind me saying this - thinking at the time, 'Oh, he's far too arrogant for to be on PokerFace. What if he wins? No one is going to want him to win a million pounds!'"
However, Mark came back into Sue's mind when they were casting Chasers for The Chase. "His name came up for this and were like, 'Ooh, that was that guy. He was brilliant. This is actually perfect for him'," she said.
"I've still got his audition tape somewhere. He came in, in this huge great coat that almost came down to the floor. He looked like Hagrid or something. He was enormous, just enormous! I can't remember exactly what he said but it was something like, 'They call me The Beast'," Sue recalled. "I was like, 'Oh my God, don't bother staying for the auditions - you're in!'"
After that, Mark filmed the pilot series of The Chase alongside Shaun Wallace, aka The Dark Destroyer, and the pair were hired alongside Ann Hegerty, who wrote a letter to the show's bosses, Jenny Ryan and Paul Sinha. The group have since been joined by contestant turned Chaser Darragh Ennis.
While he may not have got the job with Ant and Dec, Mark's pre-The Chase TV appearances is quite extensive. n In 1999 he made his first on-screen appearance on Mastermind answering questions in relation to the Olympic games.
Fast forward one year and he was back, this time tackling the specialist subject - cartoon series The Simpsons. He also featured on Countdown too, but narrowly lost his first match during a crucial conundrum. Appearance on BrainTeaser, Face Off, SUDO-Q and Millionaire Live - where he bagged himself £32,000 - also followed.
