Teenage brothers will face Luke Littler for chance to win £501,000 as contestant opens up Netflix audition process
Two teenage brothers from Essex, an Australian jockey and 18 other contestants will face Luke Littler for the chance to win £501,000 following an intense audition process.
Littler will come up against 20 amateur players in Beat Luke Littler, a one-off event that will be broadcast live on Netflix on Friday, October 30.
Rather than a traditional best-of-three or best-of-five match, each contestant will get one 501 leg to beat the two-time world champion, who will have to win 20 successive legs to survive.
If an amateur does manage to beat Littler in Manchester, they will take home £501,000. Will the teenager take it easy on the day of filming? "No way," he said. "There's half a million quid up for grabs. I won't be going easy at all."
Who will take part in Beat Luke Littler?
As mentioned above, 20 players will try and scoop the life-changing amount, including an Australian jockey.
Advert
The jockey's identity has yet to be revealed, but About Manchester spoke to Zac Spain, a professional jockey from Melbourne who has ridden almost 700 winners, on the day of the auditions.
“I’ve travelled from Melbourne, so I got here at 5.40am this morning to make sure I was at the front of the queue," he said.
"Being a professional jockey, I am used to pressure, and I think with my darting ability I can definitely win a leg against Luke. That’s all it takes."
Essex-based brothers Alfie and Lewis also travelled to Manchester and were queuing from 5.55am.
“It’s been a brilliant experience," said Alfie. "My tummy is still doing front flips from all of it. We don’t really care what everyone else thinks, we proved that we can be good enough and it’s just a leg.
He added: "Anything can happen and I know we can do it.”
Zac Spain, a professional jockey from Melbourne, also impressed onlookers. Image credit: Tom Dymond/Netflix
Contestant opens up on Netflix audition experience after travelling from Germany
To book a spot in the final 20, contestants were put through a three-stage audition process, with the first hurdle being a 24-dart challenge.
Contestants had to check out a leg of 501 in 24 darts or fewer and anyone who failed was eliminated immediately. Reddit user Djokerous, who travelled from Germany, opened up on his experience.
After turning up to the qualification audition at 10am, he eventually got to throw at 3:30pm.
"You go inside, they check bags. ID etc. Then you are escorted into a small room with four boards where you can practice for two minutes (literally)," he explained.
"After that, you go into a bigger practice room with more boards where I was able to throw for 7-8 minutes or something.
"Then you enter the audition room (right next to the practice) where there are tons of omnis set up. You get 24 darts to finish the leg. I hit 81, 67, 55 and then 5, 9 and was basically doomed. After that, they escort you out."
Summing up the experience, Djokerous described the organisation of the event as "awful", adding: "They told people at 3-ish that they need to leave. Rumours got out that in the morning, they had way longer times for practising. Very short practicing, very annoying after being in queue for so long."
READ MORE: Luke Littler has created fascinating Dutch Darts Championship sub-plot without even playing
Those who qualified were then interviewed by the show's production team before selected contestants threw in front of Phil Taylor, Barry Hearn and Laura Turner, who assessed their throwing ability and whether they could realistically challenge Littler.
Topics: Luke Littler, Darts
Jack Kenmare