Anneka Rice started her career at the BBC as a trainee working for The World Service on 'The World Today'. Aged 19, after two years of production experience, she resigned from the BBC and bought a one way ticket to Hong Kong where she spent the next three years working for a public relations agency by day, presenting the news on TVB Pearl in the evening and dubbing kung fu movies well into the night. She 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 and during the 80s and 90s she 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.
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 and has 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 10 or 15 year anniversaries. The Romanian Challenge Appeal, the charity set up after the Challenge, is now in its twelfth year.
In 1995, after completing 61 Challenges all over the world, Anneka decided to change her life completely and took an extended sabatical 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out of public life, so much so that Madame Tussauds melted down her waxwork model and the rose named after her was withdrawn.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. She played her first drama role in the BBC drama 'Absolute Power' with Stephen Fry and presented 'Dinner Doctors' and 'The Wright Stuff' for Ch5 and 'A Brush With the Wild' for ITV. She has appeared on 'QI' and 'Graham Norton' and 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' and she played herself in 'The Archers' when the residents of Ambridge challenged Anneka to renovate their village hall. She has also been a regular stand in on Radio 2.
She does travel writing when she needs a holiday and paints nudes when she can persuade anyone to take their clothes off.
Anneka has since presented 'Sunday Feast' on ITV, and there have been a few special episodes of 'Challenge Anneka' that were transmitted in 2006/7.
2012 saw Anneka co-present The Flowerpot gang on BBC1 with TV Gardening expert, Joe Swift and former cricketer, Phil Tuffnel.
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