Sarah Hadland on best friend Miranda Hart 'falling in love even more' after marriage shock
Sarah Hadland had big shoes to fill when she joined this year's Strictly Come Dancing line-up with pro Vito Coppola - last year's winner last year's winner Ellie Leach. And as she hits the series' half-way mark, the comedian and actress - who also happens to be the best friend of TV's Miranda Hart - has taken a break from her intense rehearsals to tell OK! how her journey is going so far.
But as well as Sarah making her Striclty headlines, Miranda has also been in the news recently after announcing her shock wedding to divorcee Richard Fairs, who she met during the Covid lockdown. Fans of the 51-year-old telly star, who is best known for playing the titular character in her BBC sitcom, Miranda, were left stunned when she announced on The One Show last month that the pair had now tied the knot. And according to Sarah, that's not the only big love in her life at the moment...
According to Sarah, her fellow comedian is “equally obsessed” with Strictly and has been “really supportive”, sending her friend lots of messages when she's watching the show.
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“Miranda has told me that having a close friend on it has made her fall in love with Strictly even more. We have a huge WhatsApp group of friends – when I was watching it, we’d normally meet up at Miranda’s and make a night of it, and I’d usually watch the final with Miranda and Patricia Hodge, who plays Penny.”
But it's actually Sarah's own mum, who she affectionally calls "Beaky", who is her number-one fan and has already been to two of the Saturday night live shows, as well as sitting in the audience on launch night.
"Oh, she loves Strictly,” smiles Sarah. “She was a ballerina as a teenager – she played Alice in Alice in Wonderland for the BBC when she was 14. She was being trained to be a prima ballerina, but gave it up at 19; she didn’t want to do it any more."
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She continues, "She went to work in Harrods, and that’s where she met my dad. But she loves the show so much – she feels ballet was a bit too strict for her and she couldn’t experiment so much. She loves all the different dances."
Sarah's own personal favourite so far was her tear-jerking Harry Potter-themed Viennese waltz, a tribute to the late actress Dame Maggie Smith. “That was special,” she reflects. “Then, to have Anton saying I’d done the hardest move he’d ever seen on Strictly… I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, but it felt amazing!”
