DAISY Donovan made her name asking outrageous questions of politicians with a completely straight face.

Now her skill of looking demure in the most humiliatingly toe-curling situations is coming in useful again, as the 29-year-old returns to Channel 4 with her new series Daisy, Daisy.

In it she will travel to America to pass herself off as a wedding co-ordinator, PA to Televangelism's first lady Tammy Faye Baker, dog handler, and a contestant in the US's original pop idol competition.

But in real life, Donovan insists she's actually hugely shy.

''I get really hot flushes if I have to talk loud, if I'm asking for something, even if there's a long queue in a shop and everybody's waiting for you to get out your change,'' she says with a wry smile.

''Just that pressure, of people sighing behind you, those are the sort of things that really embarrass me. Or Starbucks, I get in a real panic about having to ask, because they can't ever hear me, because when I get embarrassed I talk more quietly, which immediately means people ask you twice. Terrible scenario. I find day-to-day existence quite embarrassing.

''I always, always get these terrible red flushes, and blotches. I mean, I wear polo necks for any important meetings,'' she adds.

On camera, though, she admits she's prepared to do almost anything for funny TV. ''I find it quite nervous making, but it's one of those things, you've got to steel yourself to do the things you find really difficult. I did a Diva concert for one programme, and that was terrifying.''

She adds: ''I can't sing at all, I had to train for the audition, it's not even a good enough voice to pass by unnoticed. I just kept thinking, 'It's for fun, for fun, it'll be funny, it'll be fine. Oh God'.''

With her cut-glass accent - a legacy of her mother Diana St Felix Dare, rather than her East End photographer father, the late Terence Donovan, who committed suicide in 1996 - she's happy to turn up without make-up, unsurprisingly considering her natural wide-eyed beauty. Her only worries seem to be the state of her desk and the fact that she's running five minutes late. Propelled to fame as the Angel of Delight in The 11 O'Clock Show, she aims to poke gentler fun at a variety of unusual worlds, like the US town of Gatlinburg with its 36 wedding chapels.

She says of the new show: ''It's not like a quick hit-and-run thing, where you go in for five minutes, do it and you're gone. It is about building some kind of relationship with these people.

''They think I am mad as a snake, which, I have to put myself on the line and say, 'I can accept that','' she laughs.

And she says her intentions are never cruel. ''Just because people's worlds are extreme doesn't make them absolute crockpots, that's the point.

In fact, it's probably harder for Donovan herself to watch the programmes than anyone else. ''It's totally cringe. I often have fights with the directors, going, 'That's just sooooooo embarrassing,'. And they're like, 'No, it has to go in'." And her boyfriend of five years, Dan Mazer, whom she met on The 11 O'Clock Show, is right behind the directors.

''He sort of casts an eye over it. He kind of oversees what I do. I trust his judgement implicitly. Obviously we have arguments about it, but he's really, really very good at what he does." But although the pair live together, marriage isn't on the cards, she says, even though she hugely enjoyed planning somebody else's nuptials.

''I don't think so, not for many years to come. Mind you, I could probably co-ordinate my own wedding now.''

* Daisy, Daisy is on Channel 4 from tonight at 10.40pm

Published: 30/10/2003