Anna Richardson is pretty unsurprising after shooting 12 seasons of Naked Attraction.
We thought the working day was quite crazy when we add an additional shot of coffee to our vanilla latte, but Anna’s 9-5 consists of witnessing members of the public stand in their birthday costumes.
Since 2016, her Channel 4 series has encouraged singletons to find a mate based on their physical characteristics. The ‘picker’ is offered an option between six nude persons hiding in booths. Initially, they are eye-to-genitalia before their top half and features appear. After much looking at body parts, one individual wins a date.
While so much penis and vagina conversation may have a few of us concealing laughs on a daily basis, it takes a lot to break Anna, but she, too, has limits, and one episode in season eight proved too difficult.
Wrestler and IT consultant Jet Fashion, real name Iain, gave Anna a nasty attack of the giggles when he said he’d sent a Moonpig card to a sexual partner to apologise for falling out of her vagina during violent intercourse, resulting in a rip.
‘I lost it,’ Anna recalled. ‘We literally had to stop filming. I had to take a break.’
Anna, 53, is usually considerably more collected, and she attributes her ability to conduct the event with such dignity to her upbringing in a vicarage. Her father was a priest in the village of Great Brington, Northamptonshire, so they were frequently visited by ‘all of mankind’, which provided her with lifetime talents.
‘I had people in my house 24/7. Everyone from the Bishop to the homeless. I learnt from a young age how to communicate with anyone including those who were vulnerable.
‘I’ve always been genuinely interested in people’s stories and I want them to be okay,’ Anna continued.
Her empathic attitude encouraged her to train as a cognitive hypnotherapist, and she is considering starting her own practice in the future. For the time being, she employs the skillset to personally ensure that anybody who appears on the TV programme has nothing but great things to say.
‘The making of TV can sometimes be quite brutal so I’ve always been very careful about wanting to make sure that people have as good an experience as possible.
‘The Naked Attraction contestants are always in full control. If they want to stop, we stop.’
Anna’s Catholic background also influenced her desire to eliminate any stigma associated with sex and nakedness, which she has dedicated her career to.
‘I’m the only daughter that came out of my family and I felt quite strongly about using my female voice to remove the stigma of sex. There was no turning point, I’ve always been like this. I just came out as a bit of a gobs***e. I wanted to talk about everything.’
She added: ‘My parents had quite a difficult marriage, and I was always a bit of a voice that was either standing up for my mum or for what was going on at home and so I’ve never been afraid to say what I think.’
After assisting hundreds of people in finding their partner, you may assume Anna has pondered leaving the series, but you won’t find her asking her P45.
Anna plans to stay for as long as the popularity lasts, and her goal is for it to be the nude version of Location, Location. Before you quickly remove your home from Rightmove, Anna does not want house-hunters to be nude; instead, she wants nude Attraction to have the same longevity as the property programme, which has been running for 40 series.
Since beginning her television career at the turn of the 2000, Anna has presented on You Are What You Eat, The Big Breakfast, Changing Rooms, Loose Women, and Naked Education, but her favourite job will always remain Naked Attraction.
‘It’s really fun and at its core, it’s a show about acceptance, it’s a show about confidence, it’s a show about visibility and it is body-positive,’ Anna enthusiastically tells us.
‘It beautifully reflects the diversity in the landscape of the UK and whether you love it or loathe it, you watch it.
‘It’s become cult viewing, and it’s kind of weirdly multigenerational. I have parents tell me they watch it with their children.’
Emma Stone agrees with Anna on the show’s appeal. The two-time Oscar winner has expressed her affection for the programme in several interviews, and Anna was even invited to make a special video greeting.
‘I was approached back in lockdown by her team, and I thought it was a joke. I thought “Who is this lunatic that’s got in touch?”, then realised it was actually for her and did a little something.
‘She’s always been a big fan, which is just so lovely to hear.’
Anna is not one to rest on her laurels, and she has huge ambitions for the program’s future success. She plans to film a series in America, a West End musical, a live show, and a celebrity version.
‘It would be highly entertaining to get the Tory cabinet on the series. They can see what life is really like when you’re stripped bare and have to cope in front of the nation,’ she scathed.
For now, she’s happy getting the general public starkers. In the current series, viewers will meet 35-year-old pansexual pole dancer Abby, who is solo polyamorous. ‘I really have to get my head around all these terminologies.’ Abby has four different partners – one she sees weekly, one she sees monthly, and a couple she sees every other week.
While Anna has learned about a variety of lifestyle options, she has not been enticed to try them. She is now in a monogamous relationship with charity worker Simon Marks, after parting from comic Sue Perkins in 2021. Prior to it, she had an 18-year partnership with TV producer Charles Martin.
‘I’m curious and think it’s amazing that people have multiple partners, but the more I listen to them, the more exhausting it sounds. I don’t know how they keep it up.’
Although there are no indicators that Naked Attraction will stop, Anna might conceivably strip for the last episode.
‘It would be so tempting to join them for one final episode. Never say never,’ she teased.
‘Every single person that walks off the show is buzzing, and telling me it was “absolutely amazing” so it is a seductive choice.’
Joining the contestants in their emperor’s new clothing style would address one issue: her body temperature.
The male participants asked that the studio be kept heated for fear of their manhoods shrinking, allowing Anna to get’really sweaty’ while hosting the event. However, women can occasionally override with a cooler temperature since they prefer firm nipples. ‘It’s a continual fight,’ she said us, laughing.
Naked Attraction airs Wednesdays at 10pm on Channel 4