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Anneka Rice is a television presenter who started her career at the BBC. She was a trainee, working for The World Service on ‘The World Today’. Aged 19, after two years of production experience, she resigned from the BBC. She then bought a one way ticket to Hong Kong where she spent the next three years working for a PR agency. She did this by day whilst presenting the news on TVB Pearl in the evening. Evenings also found her dubbing kung fu movies well into the night. Anneka produced a successful book, ‘A Children’s Guide to Hong Kong’ and also a weekly motoring show for RTHK called ‘Wheelbase’.
By the time she returned to the UK with nearly five years of broadcasting experience under her belt she was still only 22. She shot to fame in this country as the sky runner in Channel 4’s ‘Treasure Hunt‘, still repeated daily on channels across the world. This firmly established her as Britain’s Action Girl. During the 80s and 90s Anneka Rice was rarely off our TV screens.
She presented ‘Sporting Chance’, TVAM, ‘Driving Force’, ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘Capital Woman’, ‘Combat’, ‘Holiday’ and numerous other shows.
Before ‘health and safety’ had been invented, she parachuted, pot holed, climbed mountains and risked life and limb on a weekly basis.
Challenge Anneka:
She went on to devise the award winning ‘Challenge Anneka‘ for BBC1, juggling Romanian orphanages, soup kitchens and Malawi refugee camps with raising a young family. The Challenge programme raised millions of pounds worth of supplies and services. This left an amazing legacy of projects and good will around the world. The format has been sold on to many other territories around the world and Anneka is still closely involved with many of the projects, many of which have recently celebrated their anniversaries. The Romanian Challenge Appeal, the charity set up after a Challenge in 1990, still runs to this day.
In 1995, after completing 61 Challenges all over the world, Anneka decided to change her life completely. She took an extended sabbatical to raise her children and study at Chelsea College of Art. During this time she totally dropped out of public life, so much so that Madame Tussauds melted down her waxwork model and the rose named after her was withdrawn.
However, she dipped into new projects. Anneka played her first drama role in the BBC drama ‘Absolute Power’ with Stephen Fry. She presented ‘Dinner Doctors’ and ‘The Wright Stuff’ for Ch5 and ‘A Brush With the Wild’ for ITV. Appearances on ‘QI’ and ‘Graham Norton’ followed. Anneka then developed the ‘Challenge’ programme for ABC in America with Erin Brockavich taking on her role.
She also had a hugely successful run in ‘The Vagina Monologues’. Her radio work includes ‘The Waiting Game’ for Radio 4, a nine part series on pregnancy ‘Start the Week’ and ‘Loose Ends’. She played herself in ‘The Archers’ when the residents of Ambridge challenged Anneka to renovate their village hall. Anneka has also been a regular stand in on Radio 2.
She does travel writing when she needs a holiday and she paints nudes when she can persuade anyone to take their clothes off. Anneka has also taken up performing Stand Up comedy, which she’s quite successful at.
Anneka has since presented ‘Sunday Feast’ on ITV. There have also been a few special episodes of ‘Challenge Anneka’ that were transmitted in 2006/7. It was announced in 2022 that Channel 5 were planning to revive Challenge Anneka with a new 4 part series. 2012 saw Anneka co-present The Flowerpot gang on BBC1 with TV Gardening expert, Joe Swift and former cricketer, Phil Tuffnel.
More recently in 2019 Anneka appeared in Celebrity Antiques Road Trip. She became a contestant on series 17 of Strictly Come Dancing. She’s been on Bake Off, An Extra Slice and was also on 2019’s Children in Need. 2022 saw Anneka appear as a contestant on a revival of The Weakest Link, presented by Romesh Ranganathan.
