Are you up to the challenge?
MARION McMULLEN looks at how Challenge Anneka became a TV hit 35 years ago
A MOBILE phone as big as a brick and figure-hugging multi-coloured jumpsuits meant Anneka Rice was ready for action.
The Welsh-born TV presenter created Challenge Anneka and it launched in 1987 on BBC as a Children In Need special.
Her first challenge was to organise a symphony concert on the River Thames for the fundraising event, complete with fireworks and ice dancing.
It proved to be the first of many challenges from finding 100,000 new blood donors for the UK Blood Transfusion Service to helping to renovate the famous ancient chalk horse above Weymouth with the aid of local scouts and mountain climbers.
The series launched in 1989 and ran for 65 episodes before ending in 1995. It was later rebooted on ITV for two special episodes which aired in 2006 and 2007.
Now Challenge Anneka is making a comeback on Channel 5 later this year and will see 63-year-old Anneka – and Dave “the soundman” Chapman from the original series – back to face new challenges.
Anneka began her career on Hong Kong television before becoming a household name on Channel 4’s game show Treasure Hunt.
Challenge Anneka saw the intrepid presenter racing to complete projects against the clock and one challenge saw her rushing to print 10,000 copies of a joke book in just 36 hours in aid of Friends Of The Earth.
The series was watched by 12 million viewers at its peak, but Anneka later took a break from TV to study painting at Chelsea Art College.
She has returned in recent years and proved she was still up for a challenge when she was crowned star baker on The Great Celebrity Bake Off after impressing Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue Leith with sticky toffee choux buns and a showstopping chocolate cake.
Anneka’s also partnered Kevin Clifton on Strictly Come Dancing and said: “I never enjoyed dressing up as a child unless it was to put on an army uniform or a boiler suit.”