Welcome back! When we left off last week, we were discussing the casting process of The Chase Australia, and how Brydon got the gig of the Chaser that would be known as ‘The Shark’. But this week, I wanted to explore what it’s like actually BEING ‘The Shark’…

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SH: So The Chase Australia has been going for seven years now, and goodness knows how many episodes… Five episodes a week, isn’t it?

BC: Yeah, although they have shown repeats a little bit later in the week for some time. I’m not sure. We’re certainly well past 1000 episodes. I know I’ve done somewhere in the range of 250 or something.

SH: It seems to me that an incredible work ethic is required of you, and you need to be always sharpening that sword.

BC: Yeah.

SH: I don’t think I’d have the stomach for it. And all four of you’ve always got this pressure on you to be that expert. I take my hat off to you all.

BC: Yeah. And at the start, I identified subject areas where I thought, “Okay, this is clearly a weakness of mine that I’ve never been that interested in”. So, I made myself some spreadsheets of operas, for example, and was trying to learn a bit more about that stuff. And I wrote myself some practice questions. And in time, I began to realize that, for example, on the UK version of The Chase, they’ll go into depth with something like opera and classical music. And in Australian game shows generally – not just The Chase – those subjects tend to be not explored in that much depth. Questions will tend to be about just the really famous stuff, mostly. So if you can get your head around that stuff, then you’ll probably be okay. Over time, I sort of worked out what subject areas I needed to brush up on, and what other ones I could just do in a shallower sort of way.

SH: Right. And that comes back to one of the big tips that I keep hearing time and time again, which is; if you want to do well in quiz shows, think like a question writer. In fact, become a question writer.

BC: Yes.

SH: That’s the best thing you can do.

BC: Yeah, absolutely. Because that’s ultimately where all of the questions come from! Someone looks at something and goes, “That’s an interesting fact, I’ll write a question about that”. The question writer has thought, “Well, that’s curious or quirky – that’d make good TV”. So if you’re looking at a list of things you’re trying to study, and you want to do it in a shortcut way… think like a question writer. Look at the information, and think, “Which of these things are the ones that would jump out and be the most interesting to have a question about?”

SH: Yeah.

BC: And so, sort of focus on those.

SH: I think that’s excellent advice. Now, it seems to me that The Chase – and the Chasers themselves – are in some ways, torchbearers of the idea of general knowledge being useful. You see, I have a theory that individual general knowledge is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. A wide range of general knowledge is no longer necessary. Because, thanks to the ubiquity of the internet, if any of us need to know something, we look it up, we use it and we then forget it. Because we can. The next time we need to know a certain fact, we’ll look it up, use it and forget it again. But I really like the fact that your program celebrates individual general knowledge. And I find it heartening that there still seem to be enough people with good general knowledge showing up and wanting to play. And there are, aren’t there?

BC: Yeah, but you can also look at it from the point of view that in the past, it’s been harder to study general knowledge. Now, if you have that interest in the first place, it’s so much easier. When I was a kid, I’d have had to literally browse the encyclopedias if I was trying to study general knowledge. Or if I was going on Sale of the Century back in the 90s. And these days, you literally have all the world’s knowledge in your phone, if you’re interested in looking for it. But you do have to have that interest and curiosity in the first place. And I guess what I’ve always had is, I’ve just wanted to know the stories behind things and why is something the way it is. A lot of people don’t necessarily have that, and that’s fine. But there are stacks of people out there who do, and they want to be the person who gets the right answer at Pub Trivia or who shouts at the TV and impresses everyone by going “Oh, well, I knew that one”.

SH: Yeah, bragging rights.

BC: Yeah, exactly.

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You’ll see that I mentioned Brydon’s colleagues (the other three Chasers) above. I’ve interviewed all of them for this blog at one stage or another. If you’re interested in reading my interview with Issa “The Supernerd” Schultz, it’s HERE. My interview with Matt “Goliath” Parkinson is HERE, and my interview with Cheryl “Tiger Mum” Toh is HERE. 

And of course, my interview with Brydon “The Shark” Coverdale will continue right here next Tuesday!

See you then!