I’m addicted to appearing on game shows – from Come Dine With Me to Blankety Blank, what it’s like behind the scenes
A FUN-LOVING 62-year-old game show addict has revealed behind the scene secrets of some of the most-loved popular TV shows.
Bev Stewart, who is from West Yorkshire and has four grandchildren, has appeared on the likes of Come Dine With Me, Blankety Blank and she’s even been blasted into the air on a body board in water-based game show, Cannonball.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous Digital, the 4ft 10 TikTok sensation, who is known as ‘Nanna Bea’ and ‘Ninja Nanna’ online, has now lifted the lid on her game show experiences.
From ITV’s Cannonball leaving her “black and blue from top to toe” to feeding Spice Girl Mel B Mel B’s dog in the green room at BBC’s Blankety Blank, here she reveals all…
Bev, who prides herself on the fact she “doesn’t take life seriously,” recalls the time she appeared on Channel 4’s popular cookery contest Come Dine With Me.
But rather than rustling up a Michelin-star worthy feast, the fun-loving grandma decided to try and impress her fellow diners with her own version of “school dinners.”
“I did homemade fish fingers for starter, meat and potato pie and then jelly and ice cream,” says Bev, who also dressed up as schoolboy rascal Wee Jimmy Krankie for her evening as host.
But the 62-year-old, who came in third place to a “well-deserved winner,” says that despite being “good fun,” the experience was “very, very tiring.”
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She reveals: “People think that it’s all filmed in one day but it’s filmed over a week.”
“It was a whole week of eating three course meals and not just the meals…it’s the alcohol that goes with it.
“I put about 1st on in a week with all the food we had to eat – I was so bloated!
“By the end of the week, I needed another week off work to recover from filming!”
Bev goes on to say how the days consisted of early mornings and late nights – and she wouldn’t get home until the early hours.
“Sometimes they’d be at my house at 8am in the morning and whisking me off to a local area to do an interview and that’d be it then,” she says.
“I wouldn’t get back until about 1am in the morning.
“But it was really good fun and out of all the shows I’ve done, I’d love to do that one again.”
However, according to Bev, viewers may be surprised to learn that not all is as it seems…
“When they [the other contestants] go through your wardrobes, that’s all rigged,” she claims.
“They’d already been through my wardrobes and told the other contestants what to look for.”
Bev, who is a huge fan of singing sensation Susan Boyle and is often told she looks like her, continues: “Everybody knows me as a tomboy – I don’t wear dresses.
“The only dress I own is my Susan Boyle outfit because I often appear at parties as her…so they found that and that’s what they aired on the show.
Come Dine With Me was extremely tiring and I think I put about 1st on in a week with all the food we had to eat – honestly, I was so bloated!
Bev Stewart
“It was the same when I went to the contestants houses, they’d say: ‘Oh, you’ve got to look in this drawer here and pull out these leather suspenders.”
Another element of filming that surprised Bev was when it came to the final scoring.
“They do put words into your mouth when you’re doing the judging,” she alleges.
As for the other contestants, the 62-year-old believes she was strategically put with “opposites on purpose.”
While Bev got on “famously” with the two guys, she says: “They put me – tomboy little old me, who climbs trees at 62 – with two women with false boobs and Botox…that was never going to work!”
The thrill-seeker, who is determined to prove that you’re just as young as you feel, has also flown to Malta to appear on water-based action game show, Cannonball.
Presented by Frankie Bridge, Radzi Chinyanganya, Ryan Hand and Maya Jama, it sees 24 hardy contestants take on a series of inflatable games and obstacles.
Bev says the “intense” audition process, which was held at a leisure centre in Huddersfield, was “gruelling” – and involved proving you were a strong swimmer and “doing a bit of role play.”
Recalling her experience on the show, the gran-of-four, who completed the challenges dressed as an Oompa Loompa, says: “It was fabulous and I was dead proud.
“Quite a lot of people backed out of some of the challenges, but I was determined.
“I thought, ‘I’m not going home and telling me grandkids that I couldn’t do one of them – I’m doing it all’…hence the bruising.”
The self-confessed extrovert, who says she’s “not scared of many things,” claims: “I was black and blue from top to toe.
“Quite a few people needed hospital treatment…when you saw that happening just before you did that challenge, it was pretty scary!”
The pocket rocket explains that contrary to popular belief, the show is filmed in the middle of the sea, not in a swimming pool.
Discussing some of the challenges she had to face, she continues: “There was a slide we had to go down on a body board and the bottom of the slide had a lip on it so you went up in the air and you had to go the highest.
“Then there was another slide where you had to go down on a board, skim across the water and bounce into an inflatable – that was extremely painful!
“There was also one where I was encased in a bowling ball – for me, that was the scariest because you were in an enclosed space.
“You couldn’t see, you didn’t know where you were going and then you landed in the ocean at a 20ft drop.”
As for other game shows, Bev also appeared on the Blankety Blank Christmas Day Special in 2021, which was hosted by Bradley Walsh.
I was black and blue from top to toe. Quite a few people needed hospital treatment…when you saw that happening just before you did that challenge, it was pretty scary!
Bev Stewart
Speaking of her time on the show, she says: “I was absolutely terrible.
“I got every question wrong, but it was good fun!
While Bev admits she “doesn’t do famous people” and failed to recognise the celebrities she was on with, there was one famous face she did know – Mel B.
“She was so lovely,” the grandma-of-four says.
“She brought her little dog in which she kept backstage so my claim to fame is I fed Mel B’s dog!”
But that’s not all…in 1997 Bev appeared on TV game show Can’t Cook Won’t cook alongside her then 18-year-old daughter Helen.
Speaking of the show, which was hosted by Ainsley Harriet, she says: “You were in two’s so one person could cook and one person couldn’t.
“At the time my daughter, who was 18, really couldn’t cook.
“She’s now 44 with three teenage daughters so her cooking has much improved!”
Despite not winning the show, Bev went on to have more success when she appeared on Win My Wage in 2007, which was presented by Nick Hancock.
“There was a panel of about six people and we all had different jobs, and earned a different amount of money,” Bev explains.
“The top earner was on something like £200k a year and then there were people on £50k, but I was the lowest earner because I only worked 12 hours a week at the time stuffing cushions.
“At the time I probably earned around £5k a year – it was only a part time evening job.”
Bev goes onto explain how the contestant then had to ask questions and, by process of elimination, work out who he thought was the highest earner, and who he felt was the lowest earner.
“He was allowed to ask certain questions and we had to answer honestly,” she recalls.
“He actually put me as the highest earner…and because he guessed wrong, I got the cash pot which was around £4k.
“I got a new bathroom!”