ACTRESS Susannah Doyle had reservations when asked to join the cast of BBC1's Ballykissangel. A very understandable reaction as her father, Tony Doyle, starred in the series as wheeler dealer Brian Quigley, until his death last year.

"I was extremely shocked to be asked to do it," she says. "I really just had to sit with it and rely on the fact that whatever instinctively prevailed would be the right thing to do.

"I spoke to my family about it and they were just as gobsmacked as I was. But then we all thought, 'yes, it's great'. Now I know that it was the most perfect thing to do."

She adds with a smile: "I think my dad would have kicked my backside from here to kingdom come if I hadn't done it."

Doyle, 33, joins the cast as horse trainer Avril Burke. Her appearance in the soap is gradual and her character is someone who has always lived in Ballykissangel, but has just not been involved in any of its previous storylines.

"That's how I liked it, I had a slow slide in," she says. "Many of the cast and crew were familiar to me of course, so that helped. They were all very sweet and welcoming, but opening my mouth on that first day, using an Irish accent, was still pretty scary."

Avril's background is very different from Doyle's own family life. The character has not had an easy life, helping raise her sisters from the age of 14 after her mother died and her father took to drink.

A passion for horses led to a job at the local stable and when viewers meet up with her in the new series she has bought her own yard complete with ten horses, but is still struggling to make ends meet.

"She is very independent, in a slightly self-defeating way," Doyle explains. "She refuses to ask for or accept help even when she needs it.

"She insists on doing things the hard way, but she is also very warm and is definitely part of the fabric of the place. It's great to play such a complex character."

Unlike her on-screen character, Doyle had a middle-class upbringing in south west London, the youngest of three children. Her parents divorced when she was 11, but she remained close to her father throughout his life.

Although the actress freely admits it wasn't easy starting out in a business where her father was so respected, there was never any other choice of career.

"Acting was part of my childhood, it became the thing I wanted to do even from the earliest age. I was the only one among my brothers and sisters who actually went into acting as a career.

"But for me there was never any doubt that it was what I wanted to do - although when I left the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art I had no agent, no Equity card and no job," she says.

To get that all-important card, Doyle joined forces with two friends to tour pubs and clubs in a comedy cabaret act. She's now candid enough to confess that they were dreadful.

Doyle's probably best known as sharp-tongued newsroom secretary Joy Merryweather in Drop The Dead Donkey. Her role in Ballykissangel will undoubtedly raise her TV profile again.

"I don't think it's going to change my life too much, but I'm not sure what to expect," she says. "I live in London, which is always a bit more anonymous than elsewhere, and I've been knocking around on television and in the theatre for ten years already - but you never know."

Saying goodbye to her London home for a five-month spell in County Wicklow, filming Ballykissangel, was no hardship for Doyle, who has a love-hate relationship with the city.

"It can be hard to leave, but once you've left it's almost as though you can't bear the thought of going back because it seems so hostile," she says. "I was more than happy to stay in Ireland because whenever I did come home for a break it was always too real - too many bills waiting for me."

* Ballykissangel is on Sundays, BBC1, 8.15p