{"id":812874,"date":"2026-10-24T23:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T23:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812874\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T23:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T23:12:09","slug":"gavin-and-stacey-star-laura-aikman-revealed-show-twist-to-strictly-come-dancings-sarah-hadland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812874\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin and Stacey star Laura Aikman revealed show twist to Strictly Come Dancing’s Sarah Hadland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gavin and Stacey star Laura Aikman was sworn to secrecy before making her shock return in the show’s finale – but she did tell actress pal Sarah Hadland.<\/p>\n

Aikman, who played Smithy’s ex-girlfriend Sonia, was revealed at the start of the 2024 Christmas show as his bride-to-be.<\/p>\n

Miranda star Hadland had told Aikman she had a secret, so Aikman said: “Well, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”<\/p>\n

Aikman, who plays Rachel Duffy in Liverpool crime drama This City is Ours<\/a>, told BBC Wales Lucy Owen<\/a> she did not even tell her parents about her crucial role in the show.<\/p>\n

She said: “I was just like, I don’t want to be the one that ruins everyone’s Christmas. So I’m not telling a soul.”<\/p>\n

Security was so tight actors were not allowed to go out, though Aikman said she was papped after visiting Dr Who star Russell Tovey.<\/p>\n

He was filming a spin-off of the sci-fi called The War Between the Land and the Sea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The only person I told was my friend Sarah Hadland, because she told me she had a big work secret, and basically, it was that she was doing Strictly,” she said.<\/p>\n

Once Aikman knew that she let the cat out of the bag.<\/p>\n

“And so we told each other, and then that was quite nice, because we could just speak to each other about the madness and the secrecy,” she said.<\/p>\n

A new series of This City Is Ours, which its stars recently defended against claims it glamourises crime<\/a>, starts on BBC One on Sunday at 21:00 GMT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gavin and Stacey star Laura Aikman was sworn to secrecy before making her shock return in the show’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-812874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}