The 57-year-old actress is busier than ever 26 years after finding fame as bubbly Essex blonde Tracey Stubbs in hit sitcom Birds Of A Feather

From Bird to Woman, Linda Robson has much to crow about over the course of her 30-year TV career.

Now 57 – and busy juggling two prime-time jobs – the actress is busier than ever and credits a new “reverse ageism” for her lot.

Twenty-six years after finding fame as bubbly Essex blonde Tracey Stubbs in the hit BBC sitcom Birds Of A Feather, Linda is now an ITV Loose Woman.

She has also reprised her Birds role – alongside cast originals Pauline Quirke and Lesley Joseph – on the newly ­recommissioned series for ITV.

It comes after a “quiet period” that lasted some seven years, during which time she struggled to find work.

So why the change in fortunes?

“I think the tide is changing now, I really do,” Linda explains.

“Films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, with absolutely brilliant people like Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, have helped changed the perception of older people on TV.

“It’s a weird thing because when we approached the BBC with the new Birds script, they said we needed to bring some young blood into it. They didn’t think three middle-aged women would be able to keep an audience.

“But research ITV has done now has shown that’s not the case – people just want to see the three women really. They’re not as interested in the younger ones.”

Hit: Lesley, Pauline and Linda on show ( 
Image:
ITV)
Linda adds: “I’m not sure why, but it seems fashionable to be older now. Everyone’s got a mum, everyone’s got a nan – people can all identify.

“I think people like that they can see their mums or their nans in us, and that’s a good thing.

“I had a few years when I was quiet because nothing was coming in work-wise and then, all of a sudden, it did.

“Now it’s really, really busy. In fact, I’m trying to not take on any more work so I can have a holiday with the family.”

A keen campaigner for the presence of older women on screen, Linda has been quick to ensure a more realistic perception of the over 50s.

She says: “The producers are really good, and listen to what we have to say in script meetings.

“Quite often we’ll have ideas for storylines which they’ll implement.

“For example, it was my idea for Tracey to have a cancer scare because cancer affects one in three people, especially women of a certain age. Also, in the set, everywhere you go there’s a pair of glasses, HRT patches lying around or a pair of tweezers.

“One scene saw me plucking my chin because every woman plucks their chin in middle age but it’s not something that ever gets spoken about.

“In my house it’s just part of my everyday routine. It was ­important to all three of us that we got these little things right in the show.”

Then: Birds of a Feather in 1989 ( 
Image:
BBC)
While her character may have had a recent health scare, Linda has never been fitter. She recently lost three stone, inspired by her co-star Pauline’s own incredible shrinking woman act, which saw the 55-year-old shed more than 8½ stone on the Lighter Life programme.

So North London-born Linda signed up and was soon back to her fighting weight. She has also upped her exercise regime after signing up to scale Ben Nevis at the end of the month.

Linda is doing the hike to raising money for charity Children With Cancer, for whom she is an ambassador.

“Women of a certain age, we go through times of putting on a little bit of weight and then losing it,” she says.

“Pauline and I are healthy eaters now – we’ve both completely changed our diets. But while Pauline has always liked fish, I’ve had to make myself like it.

“So we have quite a lot of salmon, cod or dover sole now – anything that doesn’t look too fishy.

“I never have any fried food now, I don’t eat red meat and I have loads of vegetables – my only downfall is good bread, which I love.”

After starting her acting career as a child – paying 10p a lesson for drama lessons with a family friend – Linda first arrived on our TV screens in 1976.

She was, briefly, in the second series of the original BBC Survivors drama, before landing a part in ITV’s The Crezz, co-starring Bob Hoskins, Peter Bowles and Joss Ackland.

Minor roles followed for Linda, including parts in Crossroads and IRA drama Harry’s Game.

But it was in Birds Of A Feather – which originally ran for nine years and, at its peak, secured 26 million viewers – that she shot to fame.

The mum-of-three is, by her own admission, “not educated, not well read, but street-wise”.

And Linda is happy to wax lyrical about basically anything from, well, waxing to white wine on the goss-fest that is Loose Woman.

Affectionately known as Baggy Mouth on the show, her indiscretions regularly land her in hot water.

She laughs: “I never know what I’m going to say – it’s literally just the first thing that comes into my head.

“I have been in trouble so many times, though. I mentioned that my husband, Mark, has his back waxed. He wasn’t too happy about that.”

While the Women are currently doing their bit for literacy rates across the UK with their inaugural book club, Loose Books, Linda regularly finds herself featuring in another kind of tome – women’s magazines.

She sighs: “The other week I mentioned how I wouldn’t have Botox, but that the only bit of me I didn’t really like was the droopy bits over my eyes.

“The next week, across a magazine cover, it was something ridiculous like ‘Linda’s secret cosmetic surgery’.

“I’ve not had anything done – the only procedure I’ve had is both lenses in my eyes replaced.

“It cost £3,000 per eye but was so worth it. Before, my whole life revolved around glasses but now I have 20:20 vision. It’s amazing.”

Linda will discuss her chosen book with the panel today on Loose Women at 12.30pm on ITV.

Show’s book club has been an instant success story

Coleen Nolan with her choice ( 
Image:
ITV)
Loose Books has become a huge hit with viewers since its introduction last month.

Each panellist picks a title every month and Coleen Nolan’s choice – Paula Hawkins’ The Girl On The Train – went to No1 in the book charts days after the show aired.

Linda’s selection – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler – will be discussed on today’s show.
Linda says: “I usually go for biographies so this isn’t my usual kind of book, but my son put me on to it. And it’s great.”

Next up will be David Nicholl’s bestseller Us, the choice of Andrea McLean.

She says: “It makes you cringe in places as the outsider looking in from above.”