Royal shock as animals die in floods

There will be parts that I really want, but I will only do it on tape. I can’t be in the room. The anxiety is horrendous, I would much rather not meet anybody

ON THE STRESS OF DOING AUDITIONS

night-time cleaning job for £100 a month. We kept coming up with these characters as we were cleaning because humour was the only thing getting us through such a depressing time. And we thought, ‘We’ve got to write something’.

“A lot of it is based on experiences we actually had. At the end of the first series, Kerry and Kurtan are talking about how they couldn’t afford McDonald’s and had to sit and watch their friends eat it.

“And that was exactly our life. We had no money. To go to auditions, it was £9 on the National Express, a massive chunk out of our weekly budget. It was horrific.”

Daisy’s dad Paul, who plays her father in This Country, urged her not to give up on her dream. She said: “Dad always said, ‘Do something you’re good at and you enjoy. Because that equals happiness’.”

Paul appeared with Daisy on Celebrity Gogglebox – which prompted cruel trolls to criticise her appearance. She hit back by posting a dance to Trolls Wanna Have

Good Times. As for that Bafta dress, Daisy admits it was all “shameless attention-seeking”. But as with all her humour, there was a poignancy. She said: “We struggled so much before the show, I thought, ‘Why not give money I would have spent on a dress to a food bank?’”

Daisy hopes her Instagram videos will help create a forum for newcomers and break down industry boundaries.

And she urges people watching to donate to good causes including Black

Lives Matter. Her videos are peppered with jokes about being desperate to get back to the pub – and that is where she took big-name Hollywood producers to discuss This Country for US TV.

Daisy said: “We took them to our local in the Cotswolds, where we used to drink lime and soda because that’s all we could afford. We sat there with them looking at a two-for-one menu. The staff were being as rude as ever. It was surreal.”

THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have written to officials at an Indian national reserve to express their sorrow about devastating floods in the area.

More than 100 animals – including 10 rhinoceroses – have died at the Kaziranga park in northeast India since June.

In a letter to park director Mr P Sivakumar, the royal couple – who visited the reserve in April 2016 – said: “We have the happiest memories of our visit to Kaziranga and are shocked by what has happened. The deaths of so many animals is deeply upsetting.”

Mr Sivakumar said “wave after wave of floods have wreaked havoc” in India since June, displacing 9.6 million people and killing more than 550.

DAISY MAY COOPER