Previous Page

Linda Barker

Linda Barker
ADD TO SHORTLIST

Price Range
P.O.A.

Type of Entertainment
Celebrity - Home & Garden - TV Personality / Presenter & Host - Entertainment / Speaker - After Dinner Speaker

Great For...
Corporate Events, Conferences, Company Parties, Award Ceremonies, Celebratory Events, Galas/Balls, Launch Events

Linda Barker is an interior design guru and celebrity jungle survivor!

Born and brought up in Yorkshire, Linda Barker originally trained as a fine artist.  Having left art college in the early 1980’s, she began to focus her talents on more commercial applications and quickly became established as one of London’s most innovative decorative painters and interior design consultants.  Since that time she has undertaken many and diverse interior design commissions, both in the private and corporate sectors, ranging from the decoration of numerous celebrity homes to the styling of entire restaurants and retail outlets.  Linda has also been active in the PR industry, where she’s been employed as the design stylist behind some elaborate and prestigious product launch events.

In 1988 Linda began working with the media (styling and writing interiors features for House Beautiful, Inspirations, and Country Homes & Interiors magazines) and by 1994 her talents had spread onto TV with an appearance on BBC’s Home Front.  The following year she and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen made the pilot programme of Changing Rooms and the rest is history.  Changing Rooms has been a phenomenal international success, moving from BBC2 to BBC1 and then on to virtually every English speaking TV territory around the world.  While Linda was with the show it reached its peak of popularity, attracting a UK audience of over ten million viewers per episode.

In 1999 Linda began co-presenting House Invaders for daytime BBC1.  She was also the co-presenter on Planet Christmas, a three-part special for BBC2, broadcast prior to Christmas 2001.  She has also presented or guested on a number of other TV programmes, including Good Morning with Anne and Nick, The Antiques Show, GMTV, Through the Keyhole, and Children in Need.  She has also worked with Ross Television in the States, where she filmed a special series on furniture for The Heaven and Earth Show.

In 2003 Linda emerged victorious as ‘Queen of the Jungle’, being the final woman remaining in the second series of the hugely successful ITV1 show I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Since then she has filmed a series of hour long ITV1 specials, With A Little Help From My Friends, which were broadcast primetime in Winter 2004.  Linda presented a one hour ITV1 special, Magician Impossible, screened over Christmas 2003 and also was the sole presenter of a 13 week series for ITV1 called Building The Dream, which was broadcast from March to May 2004.  (This series achieved a record audience for its scheduling slot.)  Linda has also appeared as the stand-in host on Richard and Judy and Terry and Gabby.  She is also a regular contributor to BBC Breakfast, GMTV and This Morning.

For several years Linda wrote a weekly interiors column for the Saturday Telegraph Magazine, had a regular feature in Your Home Magazine and contributed to BBC Good Homes Magazine. She still has regular appearances in House Beautiful and writes the interior design pages for both the Daily Express Saturday and Daily Express Sunday magazines.

Her numerous books include a series for Anaya (Simply Paint, Simply Fabric, Simply Curtains and Simply Paper), The Creative Nursery, Making Cushions, Napkin Folding and Origami for Salamander, Just Junk and Jazz Up Your Junk for David and Charles, and Stamping Kits for Little Brown.  She was chosen by BBC Books to be the sole writer of all three of the Changing Rooms books, and Saturday Telegraph Magazine asked her to release the book Trade Secrets (David and Charles) – a compilation of her Saturday Telegraph features.  Her latest book Wall To Wall is a collection of over 100 original wall treatments and is published by Jacqui Small for whom she is currently working on another two titles.  Over the years, and over the World, her books have been translated into many different languages and to date have sold over two million copies in numerous countries around the globe.

Over these busy years, Linda’s name and design style has become synonymous with an ‘effortless chic’, and hers is a voice that people now respect and trust.  Readers of House Beautiful Magazine overwhelmingly voted Linda as Designer of the Year in 2003, she was honoured by a This Is Your Life programme, and voted TV Personality of the Year 2003 by Your Home Magazine. Early in 2003 she was voted Yorkshire Woman of the Year.  In Autumn 2003 a Radio Times national TV audience survey voted Linda top interiors Makeover Maestro.

Since 2003 Linda has been a design consultant for Thompson Holidays.  So far she has redesigned the First Class cabins for their ship ‘Spirit’, revamped their holiday homes in France and created a new look for the children’s areas of their cruise ships.  Linda is also an active part of the Design and Publicity team for DFS, where she has her own range of sofas and has participated in numerous above the line TV and Poster campaigns on their behalf.

Linda has also designed and developed an extensive range of ‘Linda Barker’ branded products – including rugs, lighting, wallpaper, kitchen storage, scented candles, china, curtain accessories, textiles and gift wrap.  In 2003 she launched her own mail order business Really Linda Barker.  The R.L.B. website and catalogue feature home accessories and decorative products all chosen or designed by Linda herself.  In 2004 and again in 2005 Really Linda Barker was selected by the Daily Mail’s You Magazine as one of their top ten catalogues for Christmas, and it also won Silver in House Beautiful Magazine’s 2005 award for Best Interiors Collection.

Linda is also in great demand nowadays on the Celebrity Speaker circuit, and has hosted both corporate and public events in the Interiors, Beauty, Property and Business Development industries – she is also very active in the world of charity events, in particular fundraising for the Northampton and Warwickshire Air Ambulance where she is the patron.  When not involved in any of the above, Linda loves to cook and is very keen on the keep-fit and Yoga side of her life.  She is also now involved in a new photographic and TV location house that she has created near her home in South London.

To enquire about or book Linda Barker for your event contact Arena Entertainment. Either send an email to [email protected] or speak to one of our booking agents on 0113-239-2222.

More Info
Click to Quick Enquire
Linda Barker

Enquire & Book

Leave a few details and we'll get back to you...

If n/a please type 'other'

Send

*Mandatory fields