GRADUATE Hayley Standing is hoping fast food will fast forward her acting career after starring in one of the most popular TV ads of the year.

Hayley hit people's screens as a caravanning holidaymaker in the comedy McDonald's advert for the Creme Egg McFlurry.

Now the former Blackburn College student has also gained a small part in the second episode of the new BBC 1 series Dalziel and Pascoe which is expected to start in September.

Hayley, 22, who also went to Fisher-More High, Colne, was snapped up by an agent after completing her BA degree in acting at the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre.

She has already had a small part in the recent comedy Ted and Alice on BBC 1 and an advert for ITV2 Sport starring Nick Hancock.

She is now spending most of her time attending auditions in London, where she moved six weeks ago.

She lived at Langdale Rise, Colne, before going to university in 1998 and her family now live in Manchester Road, Barnoldswick.

Hayley said: "It was quite funny doing the McFlurry advert.

"We started eating them at 7am and we were still eating them at 7pm. That's a lot of McFlurry!"

The advert is set in a caravan and features two couples. Hayley is with her partner in the bedroom eating a McFlurry but it from their moans of pleasure it sounds like they may be up to something a little more "fruity."

The other couple are sitting in the lounge area and they look at each other, wondering what is going on.

They nearly collapse in shock when they hear the other couple ask each other: "Do you think they want to try it?"

Hayley's part in Dalziel and Pascoe is as a waitress in a health farm. She worked with Norman Wisdom, Tony Booth and Warren Clarke, who plays Dalziel.

A former member of Colne Operatic Society, Pendle Hippodrome's Youth Theatre and Burnley Youth Theatre, Hayley has always wanted to act. She attended the Susan Chippendale School of Dance, in Colne, from the age of two and also does stints of stand-up comedy in clubs.

She said: "I do stand-up comedy but it is character-based so I don't just get up and tell jokes. It's a bit Royle Family-style. My characters are really Northern. One is a singer in a working men's club and another is a woman who works in a biscuit factory. I draw on my own experiences from places I have worked.

"The parts I'm being sent on auditions for now are comedy, which I want to do. I keep going for auditions every week. It's difficult but I've got to keep really positive because it's a life where sometimes you forget acting is your job because you might only work once a month. I'd like to get into theatre as well so it feels like I'm doing acting all the time."

Hayley has also been asked to send in an audition tape for a new stand-up TV programme entitled Take The Mike, which will be televised late at night and will involve the public voting for their favourite comedian.