Siobhan Hayes wasn't expecting still to be appearing in BBC1's top comedy series My Family. She was originally cast in five or six episodes, then her character, Abi, proved popular enough to keep her on.

She must be glad that she gave up her lunch hour while temping between acting jobs to attend the audition. Now scatty Abi is a regular fixture in the incredibly popular comedy series starring Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker.

"I was temping as a secretary at the time and went along in my lunchtime for the audition. Then I got a recall. After that, they just kept adding Abi to the series," she says.

Now she's a regular fixture and back again as the series returns, after an 18-month gap, with a new series next week. "Abi's developed quite a bit. When I first joined she was quite smart. Now she's a bit more in her own sort of world. She's not silly but thinks things her way. She can be scatty but I think she's clued up in some ways," she says. "I suppose it's bits of people I have met - and perhaps myself in a way."

Hayes was doing temp work rather than wait for the phone to ring with offer of acting work. "I decided to do a bit of typing although my speed, 32 words a minute, is not that good. I was just filling in between acting jobs," she explains.

After a Christmas special, My Family is back on screen with eight new episodes in which Abi finds herself wooed in Welsh by Keiron Self's Roger in the first story, although Alfie, played by Rhodri Meilir, proves rather better at communicating in that language. "Rhodri speaks Welsh but Keiron had to learn it," she says.

"It's just a laugh because you get a script and rehearse, block it through and add things that weren't there. It's hard not to laugh. Then we finish, have a small party, thank everyone and wait to hear if there's another series."

Hayes filled in her time by appearing as a celebrity dancer in the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1, only to be knocked out in the first week. "I didn't know what to expect," she says. "I was surprised to be asked and thought it was a great opportunity. But also I think I looked like a scared rabbit at the end of the dance. It was just overwhelming for me. You have to be quite competitive and I was just seeing how far we could get.

"When you do a rehearsal, it's fun and your instructor says, 'have you got this step right?'. Then, on the night, it's all the lights and people watching. I carried on watching after I was knocked out and voted when it got to the last four couples."

She hasn't abandoned ballroom dancing completely as she's doing a quickstep for Everyman Cancer Charity in May. The aim is to have a number of dancers quickstepping at the same time, although she's unsure how long she'll be on the dance floor.

Hayes began her performing career at the famous Anna Scher school at the age of eight and then progressed to "doing it properly" at the age of 16. "My mum sent me to get me out of the house, make me tired and make friends," she says. "You have a laugh and get the chance to do things that perhaps you wouldn't do in your school holidays.".

Attending the course meant she got an agent and the offer of professional work in children's TV programmes and theatre. It worked out well because the work was in the school holidays.

"There was no pressure and it was fun," she says. "Now it's a lovely job to do something you enjoy and get paid for it."

Hayes seems to have been specialising in comedy roles, although between the ages of 16 and 19 she was doing "more gritty stuff". Then she went into comedy and it's been that way ever since, not that she doesn't enjoy both sides of acting.

"I loved doing plays at the Royal Court in London. I did a two-hander which was quite a challenge because with television you get to stop-start but in theatre you go on, say your lines and you can't make it up," she says.

The success of My Family has made her recognisable to a big audience. "It's been really nice. She's been such a nice character really. A lot of young kids like her and older people have stopped me in Marks & Spencer and said they enjoy the show."

As well as My Family, she had a role in an ITV1 Miss Marple whodunit, Murder At The Vicarage, as a glamorous maid. Now she's auditioning for roles and is not against a change of pace and doing a more serious roles again.

"I'd like to do both, comedy and serious parts," she says. "It's nice to mix it up and perhaps prove to myself and other people that I can do different things."

My Family returns to BBC1 on Friday at 8.30pm.