The Chase star Jenny Ryan has opened up about appearing in new ITV game show The Box, admitting she felt 'guilty' over nominating fellow contestants for the 'brutal' duel.
The quizzer, 44, who has been on The Chase since 2015, is one of ten celebrity contestants on the show hosted by Gary Lineker, 65. She joins Danny Aarons, Ellie Taylor, Graeme Souness, JB Gill, Joey Essex, John Bercow, Ranvir Singh, Sara Davies and Shakira Khan.
Format plunges celebrities into the unknown
The Box is a new format that places celebrities in mystery locations across the country, enclosed in a yellow box. They never know where they are or what challenge awaits them on the other side. Challenges could be physical, mental, logical, funny, daunting, or all of those at once.
With minimal or no instruction, contestants must decipher and work out what to do. At the end of each episode, two players battle it out in The Duel, a high-stakes head-to-head game to avoid elimination.
Jenny on the 'brutal' nomination process
Jenny, best known as 'The Vixen' on The Chase, discussed the difficulty of picking teams for the duel. She said: "When you find out you're picking teams, nobody wants that. Even the top athletes at school never wanted to stand there waiting to be picked, just in case they weren't chosen first."
She added: "On the face of it, when you're on the winning team and realise you have to choose somebody for the duel, you think it's easy. You can look at someone's track record, their performance or whether they undermined the task. There are lots of factors you can consider."
"But when you're actually the one making the decision, a whole range of other factors come into play. It's not necessarily about whether you like someone or get on with them. You're thinking about yourself."
Jenny continued: "Then you suddenly think, 'That's terrible. I feel guilty for thinking like that.' You think, 'I can't nominate that person because that's really brutal', then somebody starts playing tactical games, and you think, 'Well, that puts them back into the mix if they're going to be like that.'"
Broadcast details
The Box launches on Saturday 5th September, with Episode 2 airing on Sunday 6th September, on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.
