Shaun Wallace, known to millions as ‘The Dark Destroyer’ on TVNZ 1’s The Chase, swapped the studio for McCashin’s Tap Room in Nelson last week, hosting a packed quiz night to raise funds for Cure Kids.
The 65-year-old barrister, Mastermind champion and long-time All Blacks fan was warm and gracious in a sit-down with Nelson Weekly, despite his reputation for ruthless quizzing on screen.
“It’s an honour and privilege for me to actually try and raise as much money and raise a profile of such a worthwhile cause,” Shaun enthuses.
It was one of eight nationwide events hosted by Shaun on his fifth visit to Aotearoa in six years, in partnership with Believe It Or Not Quiz Events.
Its founder and close friend, Brendan Lochead, and Cure Kids South Island engagement lead Will Hall are his local guides.
Fresh from mini golf and sightseeing in Tāhunanui and being chauffeured in a pink 1956 DeSoto Firedome from the Nelson Classic Car Museum, Shaun spoke highly of his second whistle-stop in Whakatū.
He later correctly answered “Whakatū” when asked to name the city’s te reo Māori name in a quick-fire quiz penned by Nelson Weekly.
“I’m glad I’m coming at the start of the spring season, so it’s nice and warm, bringing out the beauty of the whole place,” he remarks.
Shaun’s introduction to the Top of the South Island in 2019 included Cable Bay Adventure Park, Pic’s Peanut Butter World and the Nelson Classic Car Museum, rounded off with a quiz night at Speight’s Ale House.
“I think the standards [of quizzing] are very high… and now that [New Zealand has] got The Chase New Zealand, hopefully one day they’ll have their own New Zealand chaser,” he says.
His message to Nelsonians who scream answers at their screens each weeknight while watching the programme Shaun was first appointed to in 2009 - “Thank you for making the show the number one show it is, so keep on watching,” he says.
“If it wasn’t for you, the show wouldn’t be a success.”
Despite a full-time legal career, Shaun says he revises for two hours a day to keep his quiz skills sharp.
He revealed that three episodes of The Chase are filmed in a single day, and host Bradley Walsh doesn’t know which chaser will appear until they walk on set.
Shaun aced most of the Nelson-themed quiz questions correctly naming Rod Dixon as the 1983 New York Marathon winner and Abel Tasman National Park as the landmark visited by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018.
Contemplating if New Zealand-born scientist Maurice Wilkins or Sir Ernest Rutherford is memorialised in Brightwater - “It’s either A or B, they both won the Nobel Prize, one for medicine and the other for physics… I’m gonna have to go for Rutherford”.
Six seconds it takes him to correctly guess that Pic’s produces peanut butter.
A perfect score was narrowly missed when he chose Nicole Richie instead of Courtney Love as the celebrity who briefly attended Nelson College for Girls for one term and was reportedly expelled for misbehaving.
His Nelson-themed chase was over.
