FOR the past four weeks Angela Rippon has stunned Strictly fans with her glamorous high kicks and splits – with clips of her dazzling moves going viral, clocking up a million views.
Despite her time on the BBC One dance contest looking effortless, it has not been painless for the telly veteran, who has just celebrated her 79th birthday.
While her co-stars turn to all sorts of other treatments to heal their traumatised limbs, Angela has two not-so-glamorous secret weapons.
She laughs: “Voltarol and ibuprofen have become my two best new friends.
"There’s not really much time for doing anything else really — Strictly just takes over.
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“It may sound masochistic but while I ache from head to toe, I’m just having the time of my life.
“I’m very fortunate, really, because I’ve always kept fit for my job.
“I know people don’t think that working in television requires any kind of physical effort, but if you do the programmes I’ve done, I’ve been on my feet 12 hours a day, literally on my feet walking 12 hours a day.”
But even the super-fit younger stars of Strictly haven’t made the same impact as Angela, who is the oldest contestant in the show’s 19-year history.
In week one her leg lift at the end of her cha-cha-cha with pro partner Kai Widdrington — to the sound of Shirley Bassey’s Get The Party Started — had audiences gasping and the judges giving a standing ovation.
Then last week she twice did the splits during her rumba and left head judge Shirley Ballas in a state of shock.
As a result she and Kai received 31 points for the dance, which was their highest score so far.
LIFE'S AMBITION
The online reaction has been mind-blowing for Angela, who thought she had seen it all in a media career that spans six decades and once saw millions tune in to watch her dance with Morecambe and Wise.
She says: “It’s a whole new experience for me, going viral.
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“The programme I’ve been working on for the past 15 years — Rip-Off Britain, which is on the air at the moment — it hardly ever makes headlines of any description.
“Then suddenly to find that I’m doing something that is giving me great pleasure and I’m having a lot of fun doing it . . . This whole thing of the internet and Instagram and all the rest of it is a world that I have never inhabited until recently.”
Dance partner Kai seems just as amazed. He recalls: “I said, ‘Angie, do you know how viral you went?’
“She was in every newspaper, on every website and we had 400,000 views on YouTube in a day.
“Then when I saw we were on Gogglebox when we did the leg thing, that’s when it hit home.
“I think there was the two girls from Leeds and they were like, “Oh my God, I can’t even touch me toes!”
“We’ve got that banked — we’ve had a Gogglebox moment too which is fantastic.”
But for Angela, it is not just about revelling in being back in the spotlight.
Her success on Strictly has also seen her fulfil a life’s ambition that was sidelined when she became a national TV newsreader in the Seventies and Eighties.
She says: “When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a dancer, as all little girls do if you go to dance class.
“But I learned by the time I was 17 that that was really not going to happen.
“First of all, I was too tall to be a ballerina and I didn’t have the talent anyway.
“So in a way, coming back 60 years later, it’s lovely to be doing something that I wanted to do when I was little.
“In that respect, I suppose it’s liberating because I’m living my teenage dream and I’ve had a perfectly respectable career in the middle of it.”
Although Angela started her TV work on a local station in 1966, she worked her way up and in 1975, aged 30, became Britain’s first full-time female national newsreader.
Two years later she became the first host of Top Gear, then in 1983 she co-hosted the first ever Good Morning Britain breakfast show for TV-am on ITV.
From 1988 to 1991 she was also the first female presenter of Come Dancing.
More recently she has been the co-host of BBC One’s Rip-Off Britain, which has been a popular daytime show since 2009.
As well as realising her ambition of being a dancer, there is another dream element for Angela — which is finding herself partnered up with hunky Kai, who in real life is in a relationship with stunning fellow Strictly pro Nadiya Bychkova.
Angela says: “My girlfriends are jealous I’m dancing with Kai — and not just my friends, either.
"All sorts of people are. It is a dream . . . he’s got to block up his ears when I say this because I keep complimenting him. But he is an absolute dream to work with.
“You will probably know from watching the choreography that he’s a great dancer, he’s a terrific choreographer, but as a human being, he ticks all the boxes.
“He doesn’t lose his temper. He doesn’t get cross with me. He’s very patient and I trust him implicitly.
“He’ll say, ‘Do you think you can do this?’ And we have a go at it to see if we can do it or not.”
Although Angela says she has never stopped feeling 30 years old in
her head, she also says doing Strictly with Kai has made her reassess her 79- year-old physique.
She explains: “What he’s done is made me realise that there are things I can do that I assumed, at 78 and 79, I wouldn’t be able to do.
HUGE INSPIRATION
“And that is a lovely feeling because he does challenge me and make me do things that I didn’t think I probably could do.
“I think together we’re disc- overing what my limitations are. And it is a lovely feeling actually to be in a hold with someone with whom you feel absolutely safe.”
Inevitably, that has also proved a huge inspiration to a variety of viewers at home.
Angela says: “That’s the lovely thing. Lots of people have contacted me.”
Though winning the show’s glitterball trophy would be the ultimate ambition, Angela and Kai’s immediate goal is to make it to the Blackpool round because it has special significance for both of them.
Kai says: “We’re manifesting Blackpool in the back of our minds, obviously because of the story behind it. Before I was even born, Angela was presenting Come Dancing at the tower.
Learning dancing as a kid, I danced in the tower as a six and seven-year-old.
“When we met for the first time, we met in the Blackpool Tower.
“Quite rightly, we are taking it week by week, and we are our own competition, in the least competitive way possible.
“We’re not worried about anybody else because we can’t control anything but ourselves.
“So that’s all we can do and give the best each week, which we’ve done so far.”
- Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight on BBC One at 6.35pm.
