DIY show Changing Rooms has gripped the nation for five years. Its stars, Handy Andy Kane and designer Linda Barker, tell LINDSAY JENNINGS why the fame game can be a bit daunting and reveal the latest interior trends

'HANDY" Andy Kane is feeling a little bit bleary-eyed. The DIY expert of the hit television series Changing Rooms was up with his 12-month-old daughter, Olivia, at 3.30am and with his chauffeured ride to the airport picking him up at 5am, he didn't dare go back to sleep.

"I'm shattered mate," he admits in his trademark 'saarf' London accent, but shows little sign of tiredness.

It's now 12.30pm and he's just finished a demonstration at Darlington's Dolphin Centre, transforming an old dark oak wardrobe with Changing Rooms' Yorkshire designer Linda Barker.

The pair are like a couple of old fashioned comedians on stage, he firing the funnies with a knowing grin towards the audience, she the straight woman, throwing a look of mock indignation in his direction.

"I think it's looking okay now," she says, as one of the recently glued tin panels slowly starts to peel away. "Whoever wants to take it home..." "Good luck to you," chips in Andy.

It is no wonder they have such a rapport. The pair have been working on BBC1's flagship DIY programme since it began and are currently filming the ninth series. It was Linda who put 35-year-old Andy forward for the show when he came round to her south London home to do some carpentry work.

"I was working round her house," he recalls. "She'd been for an interview, to do a screen test, and the producer rang her up and said we'd like you to do the job. We've got another guy, Laurence, and all we want is a guy who can build things. So she said, what about Andy?"

Since Handy Andy burst onto our screens, he has become as famous as the top designers he appears with.

His boy-like cheeky smile and easy- going manner are quick to put down any lofty ideas from the likes of the foppish Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. It is these qualities he brings to the Dolphin Centre, good-naturedly signing autographs and patiently listening as one woman decides to tell him about her recent bereavements, probably feeling as if she already knows him.

He is much shorter in the flesh, as people on television usually are, and admits the fame thing was a bit daunting at first. "It's very strange because people start to recognise you in the street. It took a while to get used to," he says. "But I've worked on site and you do get to handle people. At the end of the day I don't take any of it seriously."

His brand of fun DIY has also led to legions of women picking up their hammers and jigsaws and building their own MDF coffee tables and fire surrounds. "Why should it just be a male dominated thing?" he says. "You get so many single girls, career women on their own who either call someone in or do it themselves and I think programmes like ours kind of give people inspiration."

Andy has also had his first stab at presenting; he's just finished a BBC education programme teaching 14-year-old kids about maths. His eyes light up as he describes how they help kids calculate how many tiles a room would need etc. "I love kids," he says. "I'd love to do a kids' Changing Rooms."

Andy admits he's picked up more than a few tips from the show's presenter, Carol Smillie. "You can either do presenting or you can't," he says.

"When you work with someone like Carol who's so natural, she makes it look so easy, but it's an art. I study her and watch her," he says.

The success of Changing Rooms probably has a great deal to do with the characters involved with it. Linda Barker says it's also because people are downright nosy.

"It's got a combination of factors. You get a look into neighbours' houses and we're all quite nosy - we like to see how other people live," says Linda.

The 39-year-old, who was born in Shelf, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, has kept true to her roots, never tempering her Northern accent, despite moving in the conceited world of interior design. "I'm proud of where I come from and I come back up to Yorkshire quite a bit. My family is from there and so are my friends," she says.

The designer is currently doing up her own five-bedroom Victorian home in south London. It will surely be the epitome of style and cutting edge glamour.

"People would say it has my look about it," says Linda, who is renowned for her simple, contemporary designs. "I've used polished plaster in a baby blue colour and all my floors are wooden or stone. It's quite a natural look with lots of light and space."

The show is over and Andy and Linda head off for two more appearances in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool before flying back home from Teesside Airport.

Andy is looking forward to being reunited with his wife Geraldine and three daughters - Amy, seven, Ellie, four, and one-year-old Olivia, at the family home in Bromley, Kent.

"The good thing with my work is you can get a few days off in a row. I take the kids to school and take them to ballet. It's great," he says. "At the end of the day I'm just a normal guy who's struck lucky, and I'm making the most of it."

With that, he turns and smiles warmly at the woman who approaches him, apologetically holding up her pen.

"All right there, how are you? What's your name?"