Three decades since Anneka Rice lit up our TV screens in the hit BBC show Challenge Anneka, the daredevil star has dusted off her iconic jumpsuit for a new, four-part reboot – and she couldn’t be happier.
“It’s great to be back,” she beams as she chats about the return of the hit 90s show. It sees her take on a new – often daunting – task each week with a group of big-hearted volunteers. “I think people like to help. It is often very difficult, as the issues we are dealing with now are so big, but coming to volunteer and work with us is like running away with the circus.”
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Full of energy as ever, Anneka, 64, says making the series has given her faith that the world of TV isn’t as ageist as it’s sometimes made out to be.
“Me and Dave ‘The Soundman’ [Chapman] from the old series are back and there are 130 years between us, but you never change,” she says. “Inside you are still the same person. I say good for British TV and radio for taking me at inside value, rather than face value.”
Mum-of-three Anneka was one of TV’s golden girls in the 1980s, but although the decade later developed a reputation for questionable male behaviour, she says she encountered very little unwanted attention.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1583506613/1679985203/articles/I3efFEFwb1680093482884/0919001771.jpg]
“It only happened once, and someone quite famous – very famous – took me [with him] on the pretence that he had to go back to his hotel and get something,” she recalls. “And so I innocently went and just stood outside and then he tried to drag me in. I just said, ‘What the f**k are you doing?’ and then he went, ‘I am sorry,’ and we carried on and went to an art exhibition. That was my only experience.”
Asked how she’d have dealt with having to fend off any more lecherous advances, she says, “I would have literally kneed them. I would’ve been brutal. Not once did anyone [in the 80s] make a pass at me. It is actually a badge of honour.” In fact, one of her worst experiences happened away from the bright lights of the TV studio.
“I once got flashed on the river bank,” she says. “This man flashed me and he was fumbling around down there and flashing me and looked up and said, ‘Oh no, it’s Anneka Rice!’ and then he just crawled off into the bushes. I found it quite charming and I shouted after him, ‘Sorry! Sorry I ruined your flash’.”
Unfortunately, the star also worked alongside children’s TV presenter and cartoonist, Rolf Harris – who in 2014 was jailed after being convicted of 12 indecent assault charges of girls from the 60s to the 80s, with one charge later being overturned.
“I did a lot of painting programmes with Rolf and I did panto with Rolf,” she says. “There are many tracts of my career that I have just airbrushed out now as people are literally in prison now.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1583506613/1679985203/articles/I3efFEFwb1680093482884/6901906966.jpg]
Chatting to comic Richard Herring for his Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, Anneka admits she never felt like she was destined to be a big TV star.
The former journalist says her life “turned on a sixpence” when she landed a role on Treasure Hunt, the hit 80s game show that ran from 1982-89.
“I went from this newsreader job, to a job where I was leaping up mountains be...
“It’s great to be back,” she beams as she chats about the return of the hit 90s show. It sees her take on a new – often daunting – task each week with a group of big-hearted volunteers. “I think people like to help. It is often very difficult, as the issues we are dealing with now are so big, but coming to volunteer and work with us is like running away with the circus.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1583506613/1679985203/articles/I3efFEFwb1680093482884/6660089680.jpg]
Full of energy as ever, Anneka, 64, says making the series has given her faith that the world of TV isn’t as ageist as it’s sometimes made out to be.
“Me and Dave ‘The Soundman’ [Chapman] from the old series are back and there are 130 years between us, but you never change,” she says. “Inside you are still the same person. I say good for British TV and radio for taking me at inside value, rather than face value.”
Mum-of-three Anneka was one of TV’s golden girls in the 1980s, but although the decade later developed a reputation for questionable male behaviour, she says she encountered very little unwanted attention.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1583506613/1679985203/articles/I3efFEFwb1680093482884/0919001771.jpg]
“It only happened once, and someone quite famous – very famous – took me [with him] on the pretence that he had to go back to his hotel and get something,” she recalls. “And so I innocently went and just stood outside and then he tried to drag me in. I just said, ‘What the f**k are you doing?’ and then he went, ‘I am sorry,’ and we carried on and went to an art exhibition. That was my only experience.”
Asked how she’d have dealt with having to fend off any more lecherous advances, she says, “I would have literally kneed them. I would’ve been brutal. Not once did anyone [in the 80s] make a pass at me. It is actually a badge of honour.” In fact, one of her worst experiences happened away from the bright lights of the TV studio.
“I once got flashed on the river bank,” she says. “This man flashed me and he was fumbling around down there and flashing me and looked up and said, ‘Oh no, it’s Anneka Rice!’ and then he just crawled off into the bushes. I found it quite charming and I shouted after him, ‘Sorry! Sorry I ruined your flash’.”
Unfortunately, the star also worked alongside children’s TV presenter and cartoonist, Rolf Harris – who in 2014 was jailed after being convicted of 12 indecent assault charges of girls from the 60s to the 80s, with one charge later being overturned.
“I did a lot of painting programmes with Rolf and I did panto with Rolf,” she says. “There are many tracts of my career that I have just airbrushed out now as people are literally in prison now.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1583506613/1679985203/articles/I3efFEFwb1680093482884/6901906966.jpg]
Chatting to comic Richard Herring for his Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, Anneka admits she never felt like she was destined to be a big TV star.
The former journalist says her life “turned on a sixpence” when she landed a role on Treasure Hunt, the hit 80s game show that ran from 1982-89.
“I went from this newsreader job, to a job where I was leaping up mountains be...
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New UK (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 03, 2023