Anita Dobson loves working but there is 'not enough money in the world' to make her go on reality show
AS landlady Angie Watts, actress Anita Dobson was the self-proclaimed ‘queen’ of The Queen Vic in EastEnders. But she could have ended 2025 with yet another crown as Queen of the Jungle.
ITV chiefs wanted her to sign for I’m A Celebrity and join the likes of Angry Ginge, Aitch, Kelly Brook and fellow Albert Square favourite Shona McGarty in the Australian camp. However, Anita turned the offer down.
She revealed: “They did ask me and I said No. I would never. There is not enough money in the world to make me go on that programme. It’s having to eat and do all those stupid things and being stuck with the same people all the time that you didn’t choose to go on holiday with. No. I couldn’t do it.”
It is a shame because it would have topped a very exciting year for the 76-year-old actress. She not only reprised her iconic role as the late Angie Watts in the special 40 th anniversary episode of EastEnders back in February – appearing in a surprise vision to her daughter Sharon (Letitia Dean). But her character of Mrs Flood caused huge excitement among Doctor Who fans when she was unveiled as the legendary villain The Rani in the BBC One sci-fi series in May.
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Anita admits she is good at keeping secrets as she couldn’t tell a soul (apart from her husband and Queen guitarist Brian May) about what she was up to. And it’s something she is going to have to do in 2026 as she has another role coming up in a show but she cannot talk about it.
The star confided: “The thing is that everybody tells you to keep quiet. I had to keep so many secrets last year. It's been ridiculous but I have got something coming up. I have got a part. It’s not like Mrs Flood (in Doctor Who) but it’s popping in and out of a series.”
Believe it or not, but telly favourite Anita, who was born in Stepney in east London, has actually been acting since she was four years old. But she insists she didn’t choose acting, it chose her. She disclosed: “It wasn’t really me that decided to be an actress, it was decided for me. I was four years old and I got taken to a pantomime in Hackney with my grandfather and my mother and apparently I did the whole show with the actors on stage. It must have been really annoying for them and then I went home and did the whole show again for my family. My grandfather said to my mum ‘You wanna watch her. She has got the sawdust in her blood’. And this was at four years old.”
After training at The Webber Douglas Academy of Performing Arts in London, she landed her first acting role in a Christmas show called The Saga Of Sir Sing-a-Lot. And she laughs: “And he did!
“The show was done up north and it was so cold and I didn’t know anybody and it was long hours and it wasn’t a particularly happy company as we had problems with various things and I thought I am never going to hack this. So I rang home and said to my dad ‘I wanna come home’ and he said ‘If you get through this one then everything else will be plain sailing’. And he was right.”
Anita landed presenting work on the children’s show PlayAway and then acting roles in the The Nanny and Partners In Crime and even the Jim Davidson comedy Up The Elephant and Round The Castle. But in 1985 she became a household name when she landed the part of Angie Watts in EastEnders – a role she would play for three years.
The Christmas special in 1986 where her cheating husband ‘Dirty’ Den (the late Leslie Grantham) served her with divorce papers notched up a record audience of 30 million viewers. She still has fond memories of the soap and its cast adding: “A lot of the people who were in it back in the old days have either left or passed on but I remember I loved playing Ange so much. I loved having that family with Lesley and Letitia. That was a gift.
“The scripts were so good in those early days. We didn’t have to think ... we just were it! It was wonderful. We were a happy family. And the wonderful thing about the East End is that we had a sense of humour so when things went wrong we tend to try to laugh about it no matter how horrible it is and I think those early scripts capture that.”
It was during 1986 that she met Queen star Brian May and she got to know his fellow band members including the late Freddie Mercury very well. She and Brian married in 2000.
And she laughs about how fans thought that since both had black bushy hair back then that they must have gone to the same hairdresser. She giggles: “I did my hair myself and I think Brian did his!”
Anita, who is also a singer and scored a top five hit in 1986 with Anyone Can Fall In Love, has been by the musician’s side for 40 years. She was there helping him through his small heart attack in 2020 and she was nursing him through his minor stroke in 2024.
He takes a keen interest in her acting work. Asked if he was a fan of Doctor Who before she landed the role as The Rani, she says: “I think he did love The Daleks. When he was young, as a boy, he did watch it, as we all did. When I grew up that was a go-to. But then I think he kind of forgot about it. I mean he is somebody who works for NASA so he was onto bigger things. But I think I have been in it he has got more interested. He keeps saying ‘They should bring The Daleks back. Don’t you think? And I do too.”
Asked if she would like to reprise her role as the villain on the show, she says without hesitation: “Just give me a call.”
Anita admits she is very much a home bird when not working and weekends are precious. She reveals: “Sundays are the best chill out days. I like to get up late then. I like a nice walk around the garden but I am more of an indoor plant than an outdoor plant. And Sunday is also when I have time to cook. Not cooking because you have to eat but actually thinking about what you are going to cook and experimenting a bit.”
If she wouldn’t do I’m A Celebrity, it begs the question whether – with all her cooking skills - she would step into the kitchen for Celebrity MasterChef. But that’s a no too.
She explains: “No. I don’t like cooking under pressure. And I don’t like somebody looking over my shoulder watching me all the time. It would drive me mad. Cooking is stressful enough. My husband says ‘Why do you get so irritable when you are cooking’ and I say ‘It’s because you are in my way and I need you to move’.”
But she did do Strictly in 2011 (and lasted for nine weeks) as it meant learning a new talent. She adds: “It was the only one I would do and I loved it and had great fun too.”
With at least two iconic roles on her CV, it is worth asking if there are any parts she missed out on or any roles she wishes had come her way. But she told fans at a ComicCon event in Somerset: “I am very philosophical. If it’s not meant for you then it goes to somebody else and it’s their turn and you’ll get yours if you are patient.
“I have never been jealous of anyone and I just think ‘Keep working! Do the best you can with everything that comes your way and don’t worry about what you haven’t got. Concentrate on what you have.”
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