Anne Robinson might be the first female presenter of Countdown, but it’s probably best you don’t draw that to her attention.
“When Channel 4 said to me ‘you’ll be the first woman’, I groaned, because I was rather hoping we’d got past the stage of being completely astonished that a woman can do the same job as a man,” she says ahead of her debut. “Maybe we haven’t. You might as well say I’m the first presenter of Countdown who’s got O-negative blood.”
This observation perfectly sets the tone for half an hour in Robinson’s company. She speaks frankly and lives up to her formidable reputation. The 76-year-old has previously fronted consumer affairs programme Watchdog and quiz show Weakest Link, proving she could terrify business chief executives and members of the public in equal measure.
She has often enjoyed playing up to her fearsome persona – even when the cameras aren’t rolling. But, Robinson says, she’s planning to go slightly easier on Countdown’s contestants.
“One of the rules I had on Weakest Link was I never ever met the contestants before [filming],” she recalls. “Even on the celebrity shows, I’d come on to the podium, the lights would be ready to go, and people would say, ‘Hi Anne’, and I’d just keep a straight face and ignore them. That helped to build the atmosphere.
“But on Countdown, I do say ‘hello, how are you’, simply to allow them to see that the slightly pantomime character on Weakest Link isn’t all of me. And I do think they’re quite nervous, and I don’t really want that, I want to be able to play with the contestants and get the best possible out of them.”
Countdown first aired in 1982, inspired by the French TV series Des Chiffres et Des Lettres (Numbers and Letters).
Since then, it has remained a constant presence in Channel 4’s schedule, its format reassuringly unchanged amid the fast-evolving television landscape. The show sees contestants make words out of randomly chosen letters and solve maths puzzles and anagrams.
Her predecessors as hosts were Nick Hewer, Jeff Stelling, Des O’Connor, Des Lynam, and, most famously of all, Richard Whiteley, the man who started it all back on Channel 4’s opening night.
Robinson says there are “several reasons” for the show’s enduring appeal. “First of all, it’s cerebral. I like the way it has dark and light in it,” she says. “There’s Susie [Dent] doing origins of words, there’s Rachel [Riley]’s amazing maths, and the contestants are very, very skilled. And I think it’s never tried to bow to any of that shiny floor excitement. It’s gone on being authentic.”
(I say ‘mmm’ in response to this, just to indicate agreement, and immediately have reason to regret it. “‘Mmm?’ What does ‘mmm’ mean? Was that answer not interesting?” she asks. It’s almost as scary as facing her in the studio.)
Robinson’s appointment to the show has, inevitably, attracted controversy. As soon as it was announced, social media users dug up old clips from the Weakest Link, where she would pick on contestants for their appearance, sexuality or the fact they were on benefits. Her habit of humiliating members of the public, some argued, made her an unsuitable host for Countdown.
“It is a baffling decision,” wrote Rupert Hawksley in the Independent. “This gentle, mid-afternoon game show, best enjoyed with a cup of tea and a slice of Battenberg, deserves better than Robinson’s vicious tongue and pursed lips.” Channel 4 must have known this was coming, and indeed stuck by her as she was set upon by the Twitterati.
