THE MATCHMAKER: 'I would pay to go on My Mum, Your Dad if I wasn't in a relationship'

As the hit ITV dating series where single parents get a second chance of finding love returns, host Davina McCall reveals why the show is such a success

- LAUREN MORRIS

Since ITV's My Mum, Your Dad hit our screens last year, host Davina McCall has become the celebrity cupid for middle-aged singles and now she's back to help a new line-up of parents find love in series two.

However, 56-year-old Davina says that the show's contestants aren't the only ones with a new lease of life - revealing that she still feels like she's in her twenties.

"We are the first of the new generation of midlifers where we were at the illegal raves, taking drugs - we were pioneers," she laughs. "We were naughty, we were fun, we were outrageous. Then we had kids, we settled down and we were good people for 15 years. Maybe 18 if you're lucky."

Davina, who has three children - Holly, 22, Tilly, 20, and Chester, 17, with exhusband Matthew Robertson - adds, "Then your kids are 18 and you're thinking, 'Right, let's go again!' It's like having a second chance at life. But on this show, we're making the kids watch that second chance at life."

In the reality series, eight single parents head to a luxury country retreat in the hope of discovering a romantic connection, while their grown-up kids watch their every move from a screening room down the road.

With two weeks of classy dates, flirtatious activities and emotional breakthroughs ahead, Davina reveals that the middle-aged cast begin acting like teenagers on the retreat. In one episode, we see the mums having a good gossip about their love lives in the bathroom and Davina admits that she still does the same thing.

"We do that now when my girlfriends come over, or with my sister - we'll have a gossip and we'll go somewhere quiet where the kids can't hear us," she says.