Why Anneka Rice got the urge to find her waxwork head

Anneka Rice is most effective recognised for racing about in a jumpsuit for Channel 4’s Treasure Hunt and the BBC’s Obstacle Anneka.

She afterwards took to radio, presenting on BBC Radio 2, and was a contestant on very last year’s Strictly Arrive Dancing.

Also very last yr, Rice moved into accomplishing comedy and recorded The Clemmie Hart Decades for Radio 4, in which she explained to the genuine tale of how she developed a fictional agent for herself.

Forward of her next stint at elevating a snicker for the station in Assistance! My Head’s in Wookey Gap, she gave BBC News an truthful reflection on her working experience of fame.

I test to assume of my life in comic episodes, as it is really been so strange. Which is how the stand-up commenced. The genuine variation is a small dark for mass sharing.

1 of the most surreal episodes was having a Madame Tussauds waxwork produced.

I hung from a rope ladder in the lobby in the ’80s, in a jumpsuit, the initially person bemused visitors observed when they walked in.

When I cast forward with Obstacle Anneka they simply just improved my outfit and set a paintbrush in my hand.

I only found I would been taken off when Channel 4 arrived to job interview me about the honour of currently being immortalised in wax.

I basked in their consideration, until finally they explained to me I would been melted down and my head was in Wookey Gap.

My system had in all probability gone into making Kim Kardashian’s bottom.

If you Google “Wookey Gap Madame Tussauds” you will see rows of decapitated heads collecting dust on a shelf.

I suddenly had an urge to convey my head house. I imagined a mini-bus comprehensive of turned down Countrywide Treasures off on a journey to locate our heads.

Consider We are Heading on a Bear Hunt fulfills Indiana Jones.

I required to convey my head back again to clearly show my sons, who however assume I am a builder since I spent so significantly time up a step ladder through their childhood. This would be my badge of honour. “Seem who your mum was, boys!”

My look for turned a metaphor for my life. I was moved on from Madame Tussauds by safety, my cell phone-calls unanswered.

It took me back again to my teenage a long time, when I was so invisible to my mother and father I imagined the only way to get them to discover me was if I was sent to jail.

I took to shoplifting in a desperate attempt to be arrested and was taken house in a law enforcement car or truck. I made use of to steal large bras, size 46FF, stuffing them into my university rucksack.

Those bras had a life of their have – my geometry set equipped nicely into just one cup, packed lunch in the other.

At the time I got blessed in Croydon and was arrested. Whilst I was currently being held by the Surrey constabulary I gave the performance of my life.

I produced a crack for it, managing down the high street. Now you know why I liked performing Celeb Hunted so significantly.

When they questioned for my title I proudly gave it: “Wendy Process”. She was the course bully and produced my life hell. Agonisingly however, they allow me go and I went house on the bus.

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I took myself off to London and gave yet another wonderful performance to the staff officer at the BBC who approved me on a BBC education system.

Following two a long time at the Entire world Support on The Entire world Nowadays and Outlook, I required to be aspect of that globe we have been broadcasting to.

A three-yr stint in Hong Kong adopted, doing the job as a sub-editor at TVB news and then as newsreader, when the common person was taken sick.

I was so nervous the initially night I ran an individual in excess of on the way to the studio and had to be taken to operate in a law enforcement car or truck – my aspiration!

The next night Spike Milligan crawled into the studio and sat underneath my news desk stroking my foot. I was wholly out of my depth, 20 pretending to be 26. But I was flying.

When I returned to the Uk, I got diverted from journalism and was actually flying – this time in a helicopter with no any doorways. Additional jeopardy.

I had to adjust my title as Fairness explained there was by now an Annie Rice. I took the title of my good friend Gary’s sister, Anneka, and ping! I was a different person all over again, this time with an unique Swedish back again-tale.

Obstacle Anneka was heady stuff. An military of hundreds of volunteers in excess of the a long time adopted me wherever the projects took us.

These volunteers however keep on to contact me past just about anything else. Many however operate on the projects, thirty a long time on.

Meanwhile, Cubby Broccoli auditioned me to be a Bond Woman, Hollywood arrived calling seeking to make a movie of my Romanian Obstacle and I had a rose named after me.

I gave beginning to my initially son through a puppet on Spitting Picture, with Kenneth Kendal giving me directions. When son range just one arrived out he was adopted by a cameraman. Truthfully, look at it out. I have set it on Twitter.

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Even with all these qualifications, my waxwork look for was proving fruitless. Madame Tussauds set up a wall of silence.

On Twitter I was explained to I would been noticed a short while ago in a pile of bodies in a Blackpool storeroom, maybe future to Frank Bruno or The Krankies.

Then yet another strange twist. A good friend reckoned she observed Monthly bill Clinton at the RAF Museum in Shropshire, sitting down in a tank.

An additional swore they observed Larry Grayson’s head impaled on a rusty pitchfork outdoors Ramsay Bolton’s castle on Recreation of Thrones. Do Tussauds have a rewarding trade promoting off heads?

I assume I am a small way off this currently being my fate at the BBC. I like currently being just one of the longest-serving woman broadcasters. If you sliced me open up, BBC would operate via me like a stick of rock.

My Radio 2 audience have recognised me all their life. When I was performing stand-up at the Backyard Comedy Club, I was touched there have been queues spherical the block of persons in their 30s who had grown up with me on Tv set.

Additional surreally I met numerous Newborn Annekas, named after me in the ’80s and ’90s. Now in their 30s we agreed collectively it was an outrage my waxwork was lacking. They do not want to be associated with a lump of melted-down wax.

As Alan Bennett explained: “Trying to keep On, Trying to keep On.” This is a great mantra after 43 a long time at the BBC. Work gives me a rhythm, which I want for my genuine head.

Assistance! My Head’s in Wookey Gap can be read on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds on 20 March at eleven:thirty GMT.

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