Izzie Balmer is appearing on recent episodes of Antiques Road Trip, joining the team of other favourites including Christina Trevanion and Charles Hanson. And it seems that Charles, who is Izzie's former employer, played a part in kick-starting her TV career.
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After Charles was suddenly unavailable to film on BBC show Bargain Hunt, he passed the gig on to Izzie at the last minute. Speaking to Derbyshire Life in 2017, Izzie explained: "Charles Hanson's misfortune turned into a stroke of luck for me."
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She added: "I suddenly got a phone call from Charles – five minutes before the auction was due to start at 10am. He was en route to Birmingham and wanted to offer me a few pearls of wisdom to help things go well.
"It was his way of telling me I was going on TV. There were no other auctioneers available – it had to be me. I had to auction the Bargain Hunt lots in front of the cameras."
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© Photo: InstagramIzzie is a former employee of Charles
After producers on the show, who also worked on Flog It! and Street Auction, were impressed by Izzie's TV skills, she was then commissioned to appear as a co-presenter on Street Auction. "I was thrilled – but a bit nervous," she told the publication.
"It's the second series of Street Auction, which got around two million viewers for the first series in 2016. We started filming in April and on the first day I was awful. I didn't know what I was doing and it was so cold a runner kept having to give me his coat."
Nowadays, Izzie works as a head valuer but is becoming more and more known for her TV roles. In addition to her work on Street Auction and Bargain Hunt, she became a regular on Antiques Road Show in 2019, alongside Charles as well as Philip Surrell and James Braxton.
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