Has Darragh The Menace Ennis been replaced on The Chase?

Currently, their true identity is unknown, but viewers of The Chase's spin-off have been gathering clues about the new Chaser seen wearing a red mask, a black suit with red question marks on it, and a black bowler hat.

From teaser clips shared on the quiz show’s social media pages this week, it seems Darragh 'The Menace' Ennis from Dublin, who now lives in Oxford, is absent from Sunday’s episode.

While some are concerned Darragh has been replaced by the mysterious new character, it’s been reported they are appearing as a one-off special guest, according to The Mirror.

Has Darragh 'The Menace' Ennis been replaced on Beat the Chasers and The Chase?

Although it has not been confirmed (at the time of writing) why Darragh appears to miss out on the finale of Beat the Chasers tonight, he did open up about his experience with grief earlier this year, after the death of his father who passed away due to dementia in July 2024.

He told the Loose Women panel back in January that he had taken a short break from filming The Chase, as he was "broken inside and he didn't realise".

Speaking to panellists Ruth Langsford, Judi Love, Sally Dynevor, and Kelle Bryan at the time, Darragh explained: “We had a natural break in filming. But when I did go back to work, I was put in those stressful situations.

“On The Chase, there is a two-minute gap right at the end - the last thing we do is really, really high pressure, just by nature.

"Normally when I start making mistakes, naturally I'd be able to handle it. I'd just plant my feet in my head psychologically and go, 'I made a mistake' and keep going.

“But this time when I went to put my feet down, there was nothing underneath them and I just fell away and I weirdly got stressed and got camera shy, which I never do.

“The pressure just overwhelmed me completely.”

He added: "I had a couple of episodes like that, where every time I tried to reach for that part of myself that is calm under pressure, it wasn't there anymore.

"At that point, the producers talked to me and said, 'would you like to take a break?' We still had a couple of episodes to film. They offered rather than told.

Loving the speculation about the guest chaser “Maverick”. Every single comment so far is wrong :) #beatthechasers

— Mark Labbett (@MarkLabbett) October 14, 2025

"So the first time it happened, I said I’ll see if I can shrug it off but I couldn't. So they arranged for counselling, with a sports psychologist, which might sound strange to some people. It's a high-pressure situation where a lot of people are watching, and these are really helpful."

Was The Menace a contestant on The Chase?

Darragh who is also a neuroscientist, was a contestant on The Chase in 2017 who went on the programme as he “just wanted a door for my house”.

In November 2020, he became the first former contestant to join the quiz show line-up.  

He told Loose Women: “I went on because we really needed money and they just called me up afterwards, it was just so bizarre.”

Darragh said he thinks he was chosen as a Chaser because he “did really well and answered a lot of questions.”

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He continued: “I’m also very calm on camera, I naturally don’t get stage fright because I think a large part of me doesn’t really care what other people think about me.

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“A lot of people who would be better at quizzes than me would freeze whereas I didn’t.

“It didn’t make the edit of the show but there was a problem with one of the questions and I raised the problem with the question, while I was a contestant, and I think that sort of flagged things up.”

Beat the Chasers airs on ITV1 and ITV from 8pm tonight.