Sarah Hadland’s TV Passions: A lot of people said, 'I love you in Car Share' and I had to say, 'Yes, that wasn’t me'

From Stevie in Miranda to Queen Victoria in Horrible Histories, Sarah Hadland has been keeping the nation giggling for over a decade in sitcoms, sketch shows and classic children’s series.

Hadland’s latest TV outing finds her joining Sian Gibson and Johnny Vegas in addictive murder mystery spoof Murder, They Hope.

We caught up with the joyous national treasure to chat about the series and her TV passions…

I jumped at the chance to do Murder, They Hope because…

Sian [Gibson] and I have sometimes been confused before. When Car Share first came out, a lot of people came up to me and said, ‘I love you in Car Share’ and I had to say, ‘Yes, that wasn’t me’.

I know Sian had a similar thing when Miranda started with people saying, ‘Oh, you’re like Stevie’. As soon as I got asked to do the job, I knew I wanted to work with Sian and she was absolutely lovely. Just couldn’t be nicer. Her and Johnny combined are such a good laugh.

We couldn’t stop giggling on set because…

Sian and I were the worst for it. We did have a day where Jason Manford was in, there was me, Jason, Shobna Gulati, Johnny and Sian. Johnny mispronounced one of his words and we all just got the giggles really badly.

One of us would manage to get to a grip and then another one would start. It was like being kids again.

We’re not exactly young actors, we’re quite experienced, but the director had to come on set and tell us to get a grip. That then makes it even worse and we felt very naughty.

My favourite TV detective is…

I’ve just started watching Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown. I watched the first episode last night and she’s my new favourite. Other than that it’s got to be Sarah Lund in The Killing, all the jumpers. But I loved Mare of Easttown. That’s going to be new favourite thing. The scene where she’s squirting cheese from a can, that looked absolutely rank. I just loved it. She’s so real and believable and she totally had me hooked.

My lockdown TV obsession has been…

Drive to Survive, the Netflix series about Formula 1. If you’d said that to me a year ago I would never have believed you in a million years. But what’s amazing is the other women – that shouldn’t be amazing, why should it be? – but the number of women who watch it. I find it fascinating all the relationships with the managers of the teams, all the money, the personalities, this whole mini-circus going on that I knew nothing about before.

In some ways it’s similar to showbusiness that you have to be determined to make it. But it’s just on a whole other level. Some things you can recognise, but then some of it is a different world.

You hear one driver is only getting £2.5 million a year and you start worrying how he will survive. Maybe I should crowdfund him? You get used to one driver earning £40 million and I genuinely felt sorry for the one earning 2.5. The whole scale of everything is bonkers.

My TV guilty pleasure right now is…

I watched a terrible series Below Deck about the a crew on a super yacht. Extraordinary. You can’t really compare it with Drive to Survive, but I got equally involved and interested in the minutia of life below deck. All the different jobs on the yacht and the petty squabbles. I think I’ve been looking to get new information about the world because we’re all so trapped at the moment.

If I could appear in any TV show I would pick…

They’re not on anymore, but I would have loved to have been in Happy Valley or Acorn Antiques. If you could sort either of those for me, that would be super.