Anneka Rice looks set to hit the road once more as she confirms her hit show is set to make a huge comeback on a brand new channel. Challenge Anneka, which ran from 1989 until 1995, was a huge hit with viewers.
It saw the TV star driving around in a large blue truck after being handed tasks before needing to persuade companies and people to take part in her charitable acts within a matter of days.
It was reported last month that Anneka, 63, was in talks with Channel 5 about making a full comeback with the series and the news is set to be announced by the network later today (May 23). However, the telly veteran got in there first as she confirmed the news during an early morning appearance on Radio 4.
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She joined Justin Webb in the studio to chat about the popular show's big return, and she's already rearing to go. "Oh my gosh, that music," Anneka said after a clip of the nineties programme was played out before her introduction. "I just literally wanted to jump up and grab a paintbrush and start painting the studio. It is extraordinary."
As Justin described Challen Anneka's return as a 'turn up for the books', the show's presenter replied: "I know. It's never really gone away. I mean, it might not be on the screen but it's been in my heart for the last 30 years and I'm still so involved with all those projects and the issues might look a bit different today but they're not at its heart."
Anneka went on to reveal how she has recently been 'floored' as an orphanage she was involved with three decades ago in Siret, Romania, which has since gone on to set up halfway houses for young adults, has seen its residents giving up their own beds for the refugees fleeing Ukraine following Russia's invasion. "It was like one humanitarian crisis 30 years ago rolling into another one."
She added: "There will always be room for Challenge on television because at the end of the day it is about kindness, it's about community, it's about the power of the collective and I think as humans, we're totally hard-wired to be altruistic."
The series was initially launched on BBC One in 1989 and ran for six years until it was cancelled in 1995. A one-off special later aired in 2006 on ITV and saw the team helping to rebuild a maternity clinic, a cricket pavilion, and a children’s play centre in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Tsunami.
