My top 10 such fun Miranda moments

Sarah Hadland on a decade of comedy

We routinely had animals on the show and, in one episode, Penny says she is frightened of ghosts, but Stevie mishears and thinks she’s scared of goats so she gets one to help her over her phobia.

Miranda had imagined a little billy goat. And that’s what I imagined, too, because I’m only 5ft 1in and a little billy goat would have been very manageable.

But we came to record it and I remember walking round the back of the set and there was a gigantic grumpy goat the size of a donkey.

I was supposed to pick it up and stick it under my arm, but it was bigger than me so I couldn’t.

We were quite hysterical. Then it did the biggest wee on set I’ve ever seen. It was like a lake.

Such fun, such fun, they had making Miranda, the sitcom that made us all fall about at the antics of the clumsy, awkward, unlucky-in-love joke shop owner who lived life at a gallop.

It has been 10 years since the show, starring creator Miranda Hart, began, with Sarah Hadland as Stevie, her barmy best mate, Sally Phillips as school pal Tilly, Tom Ellis as love interest Gary and Patricia Hodge as snooty mum Penny.

The gang reunited for a one-off silliness shindig at the London Palladium, but before watching that tonight, take a look at Sarah’s Top 10 Miranda moments.

Miranda: My Such Fun Celebration, tonight, BBC1, 5.45pm.

My older sister Kristin and I say “lovoo” to each other in real life and this made its way into the show. I think this became a constant in all the episodes. I always think of the scene where Miranda and Stevie are wearing bobble hats, sitting in a little tent saying “lovoo”.

The characters did have such a sisterly relationship and that is something that has really stuck with fans. We made it an important theme that, like sisters and close friends, you can bicker and be competitive, but at the end of the day you’ve got each other’s back.

No matter what happened during the episode, we always ended up friends again.

It brought warmth and heart to the show.

I was on a train station platform on a cold rainy night and this woman creeps up and shouts: “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

It was my idea to introduce the skit that Stevie has a picture of M People’s Heather Small on a stick and she bursts into that song.

People still shout it at me all the time.

I’ve still got the Heather on a stick.

Once I had it with me at the M&S checkout and it fell out of my bag. I said: “Ooh, sorry Heather,” imagining I was in a rehearsal room.

A queue of people were looking at me thinking: “Oh my God, she’s talking to an inanimate object.”

Then I stuffed her back into my bag of shopping.

FUNNY TURNS Sarah with Miranda in 2014 REUNITED Sarah, Miranda, Sally Phillips and Patricia Hodge at the London Palladium Miranda and I went to Uganda for Comic Relief to visit one of the projects. We were on a flight and I was trying to get something from the overhead locker, but I can’t really reach the locker and I was sort of jumping, trying to get something out with one hand. Miranda was sitting in her seat and she was literally hissing at me: “Get down, get down, you’re making a show of yourself.” People started asking if it was being filmed, but no, that was just us. I did love Gary Barlow. He was so lovely and such a nice guy. It was really good fun and the audience went absolutely bananas. Back in the day, I was a huge Take That fan. And I went to college with his wife Dawn, who was the loveliest girl and a brilliant dancer. He said hello from her and I found a photo of her and me in a show together. We were all really giddy when we knew Gary was coming on. Things can always fall through at the last minute, so it was super exciting. He was up for a laugh and didn’t take himself too seriously.