Why there’s no stopping The Chase’s Bradley Walsh.

He has been with top-rating quiz show The Chase for 11 years, but Bradley Walsh still loves his job.

The legions of fans of The Chase all over the world can breathe a huge sigh of relief. Bradley Walsh, the enormously popular host of the British quiz show, is going nowhere.

When asked if he is considering relinquishing his job as the question master on New Zealand’s best-loved quiz show, he replies, “Not a chance. I love it. It’s like going to the fun factory every day.”

Walsh, 60, who has presented The Chase since 2009, goes on to spell out what he loves about his role.

“Every show is fresh because you meet so many great people from all walks of life,” he says.

“I love it when they win and share their disappointment when they lose. It is just a great show. You think it might start to lose popularity, but it doesn’t.”

It certainly does not. After 11 years on screen, The Chase just goes from strength to strength.

It continues across the Christmas season again this year with a range of plucky contestants trying to beat one of the formidable team of six professional quizzers known as The Chasers – The Dark Destroyer (Shaun Wallace), The Governess (Anne Hegerty), The Beast (Mark Labbett), The Vixen (Jenny Ryan), The

Sinnerman (Paul Sinha), and former contestant Darragh Ennis.

But fronting The Chase is just one of many balls that Walsh is currently juggling. He is also co-starring as Graham, one of the Time Lord’s companions, in the Doctor Who Christmas special, Revolution Of The Daleks.

Walsh, who is married to former dancer Donna and has two children, says that

landing the role as the sidekick of The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) is “the stuff of dreams”.

“As a kid I was The Doctor’s biggest fan, so my mum and dad bought me a battery-operated Dalek. I must have worn it out, I played with it so much.

“Now here I am, 50 years later, going to meet them for real and all of a sudden I’m eight years old again. Time travel is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”

It will make for a busy old Christmas for Walsh, but then again he has always been adept at spinning plates.

The performer, who has also starred as Danny Baldwin in Coronation Street and as DS Ronnie Brooks in Law & Order: UK, explains that, “I have always been a sort of odd-job man.

“I don’t mean the Oddjob character in Goldfinger. It’s just that since I was in my early teens, I have had an assortment of jobs to bring in some money for the family.

“As I’ve got older, I’ve never really got away from thinking that it is good to have a variety of hats to wear.”

Walsh, who has also hosted game shows such as Wheel Of Fortune and Keep It In The Family, continues that, “Before I left school, I worked in a bakery and had to start very early in the morning. Then when I left school, I was a sheet-metal worker, an engineer, and

a footballer.

“I was heading towards being a professional player with Brentford, but an ankle injury put paid to that. So I became an entertainer. I was a Bluecoat at a holiday camp. I could have been a Redcoat, but blue suited me better. That was just the start of my career.”

He explains his workaholic tendencies.

“I have always been busy. I like being busy. You have to be busy when you are in showbusiness.

“You are always working on something, while also working on the next something.”

Walsh wants the next something to be a role that, most bewilderingly, he has yet to be offered.

“I think I would be a really good James Bond. I tick all the right boxes – I can count to seven for a start.

“I know the difference between shaken and stirred, and when you think of the most outstanding of Bonds – the late Sean Connery and the late Roger Moore – I am younger than them. I’m not so good with the karate, but I can produce a mean lamb chop. What more could you want? I’m waiting by the phone. The name’s Walsh ... Bradley Walsh.”

Walsh is absurdly busy now, but he says he is not at all concerned by the highly unlikely prospect of the work dwindling one day. “Oh jeez, no.” What would he do then? “I’d go and sit on a boat. I don’t know whose boat. But they’ll be thrilled when I turn up.”

“I think I would be a really good James Bond. I tick all the right boxes – I can count to seven for a start.”

– Bradley Walsh