Sarah Hadland is one of the 15 famous faces competing in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing.
The actor, 53, was announced to participate on the 2024 run of the popular BBC dancing competition on ITV’s Lorraine in August, alongside the former X Factor contestant Shayne Ward, and revealed she couldn’t wait to get started on the show.
“I cannot believe I am part of Strictly!” Hadland said. “I feel particularly excited to be part of such an iconic show in its 20th year.”
Hadland is best known for being one of the original cast members of the CBBC sketch show Horrible Histories and for her role as joke shop manager Stevie Sutton on the BBC sitcom Miranda, which she starred in alongside the series’ lead Miranda Hart, as well as Tom Ellis and Patricia Hodge.
The actor previously revealed she didn’t initially think she’d get along with Hart: “I hadn’t been to university or drama school. I was told a gazillion times, ‘You will not be an actress,’” she said in an interview with The Observer in 2013.
“I remember looking her up on the internet and thinking, ‘We have nothing in common; you’re posh.’"
But Hadland later admitted she’d misjudged her co-stars: “I feel lucky to have done a job that has given me a good friend for life,” she told The Sun. “I’d love to do another series, but it’s up to Miranda because she writes the show.”
Hadland grew up in Hertfordshire and became involved in youth theatre while she was at school in Cheshire. After leaving home at 16, she trained at Laine Theatre Arts College in Epsom, Surrey and made her on-screen debut with a minor role in the second series of the political sitcom The Thick of It, alongside Peter Capaldi and Chris Addison.
Like her fellow Strictly 2024 contestant Tasha Ghouri, Hadland already has some dance experience, having trained in ballet from the age of three. Ahead of landing an acting role, she started her career dancing in West End musicals, including Cats and Grease when she was 19.
The Doctor Who star and Hadland’s close friend Alex Kingston previously called out the Miranda actor for her dance training, saying: “Sarah Hadland and I talked about how much we’d like to do Strictly Come Dancing. Then I discovered that she’s actually a trained ballet dancer. ‘Hang on a minute! That’s not fair!’ So, I can’t do it on a season when she is on it.”
The Miranda star has also had roles in the BBC drama Waterloo Road, David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look and the 2008 James Bond epic Quantum of Solace.
Away from work, Hadland keeps her fitness up by going on runs. “My paternal grandfather was a reserve runner for the British Olympic team, so I like to think it’s in my genes,” she previously told The Times. “I’ve completed two London Marathons in under four hours.
“The initial resistance to exercise is weird, but I make myself do it, then the endorphins kick in.”
