I have been on a few tv quiz shows and applied for The Chase about 3 years ago. Not blowing my own trumpet, but of the 15 or so in the audition, I was by far the 'cleverest' and all the other auditionees expected me to be 'called back', but as you have guessed, I wasn't. It seems they were not looking for people who could win, but people with interesting(?) stories. One guy was writing a childrens book, so he could read it to his children(Gag!). This seems an odd condition for being on The Chase to me, as Bradley only spends about 20 secs at the start asking about 'you'!..., but hey ho... still, I won £10K on Pointless, so its The Chase's loss!