The Chase's Jenny Ryan aka The Vixen reveals surprise former jobs ahead of show’s 15th anniversary

You may know her as one of The Chase’s brightest stars, but before Jenny Ryan became known as The Vixen, she had a series of surprise job titles.

Celebrating the 15th anniversary of the hit quiz show, Jenny, 42, sat down with the Mirror to reflect on her journey to becoming a chaser and revealed she hadn’t always pursued a life in television.

She explained that although she wrote some questions for the show’s pilot series in 2009, she didn’t join the lineup until 2015 as she had to undergo multiple tests and trials.

“It’s like casting a new landlady for the Rover’s Return in Corrie. You’re not just going to drop any old person in there,” she said.

She told the news outlet that she was the captain of a quiz league before the show, in which Anne “The Governess” Hegerty was on her team, and she said the chaser saw her potential and put her forward for the show.

“It wasn’t like there was a vacancy,” she said. “If nobody was right for it, nobody was going to get the gig.”

Having loved quizzes since childhood, thanks to her late grandad who would do the quiz in the paper with her every morning, she said she had a series of dead-end jobs before becoming a part of The Chase’s much-loved chasers.

“I was a PA, I sold radiators, I was working admin at a tip,” she said. “Until a couple of years before that I was a writer in TV, but the work is so seasonal I couldn’t sustain it.”

Despite her many jobs, Ryan said she had always dreamed of being a professional quizzer but said if she had even thought about telling a careers adviser that, “they’d have laughed me out of the room”.

The Chase has become a much-loved game for many TV watchers with Mark Labbett, Paul Sinha, Anne Hergerty, Shaun Wallace, Jenny and Darragh Ennis shocking viewers with their vast knowledge.

Since its first episode in 2009, it has received a regular audience of three to five million people and has become one of the most successful and longest-running game shows on UK television.

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.