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Miranda Hart in the final stages of negotiations to play Miss Hannigan in Annie

The sun will come out — maybe not tomorrow, but very soon — for Miranda Hart when she gets the chance to fulfil her dream and star in the musical Annie.

The actress and writer knows every role in the 1977 show, and it has long been a passion of hers to appear in it.

Now, she is in the final stages of completing contract negotiations to play Miss Hannigan, the inebriated harridan who runs the Dickensian-like orphanage where title character Annie languishes with other unwanted kids in Depression-era USA.

Hart included the schmaltzy but catchy Annie anthem Tomorrow on the soundtrack of one of the episodes of her eponymous sitcom Miranda.

And when she appeared on Desert Island Discs, she chose the burlesque number Easy Street — which is Miss Hannigan’s main song — as one of her eight recordings.

When Hart was at boarding school, rather than make friends in the playground, she said she would practise acting out every part of Annie ‘to an imaginary audience of thousands’.

She will star in the spruced-up road production that toured for a year until last summer, with Strictly Come Dancing panellist Craig Revel Horwood playing horrid Hannigan for some of the run.

The musical will move into the Piccadilly Theatre for a limited season in late May, after performances of three Russian plays — Three Comrades, Two For The Seesaw and The Three Sisters, all performed in Russian by the Sovremennik Theatre Company. The trilogy replaces the long-running Jersey Boys, which closes on March 26.

Hart has done a one-woman show and has some stage experience; but Annie would mark her West End musical theatre debut.

Strictly Come Dancing panellist Craig Revel Horwood has previously played horrid Hannigan 

She’s immensely popular, thanks to best-selling books, film and TV work that includes her playing Camilla ‘Chummy’ Browne in the BBC’s popular Call The Midwife.

Annie’s likely to sell well with her name on the marquee, though Hart won’t play the full London run because of prior commitments.

Neither Hart’s spokeswoman nor Annie producers Michael Harrison nor David Ian were prepared to confirm her involvement until the musical’s dates and other contractual matters were fully sorted.

However, a spokesperson for the show acknowledged ‘negotiations’ were close to being signed.

A little miracle delayed my Holiday, says Audra

Audra McDonald’s West End debut was postponed due to ‘an unexpected delay’

Audra McDonald’s West End debut was postponed due to ‘an unexpected delay’.

The lauded Broadway actress — who has a record six Tony awards for acting — was meant to bring Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar & Grill, her acclaimed portrait of Billie Holiday, over to London seven months ago.

But as she declared on Twitter: ‘Who knew that tap dancing during perimenopause could lead to pregnancy?’ Who indeed!

‘This baby was very much a surprise,’ Audra, 46, told me. ‘A miracle baby! But very much a surprise.’

The miracle in question is called Sally; and she’s now three-and-a-half months old. (McDonald and her husband, actor Will Swenson, have four children between them; Sally is their second together.)

‘I said as soon as the baby is able to travel, we’re on our way. The baby will be stage right!’

So Lanie Robertson’s 1986 play with music — about one of Holiday’s last public appearances — will now start previews at Wyndham’s Theatre from June 17, for a limited season through to September 9.

The baby break has given Audra time to reflect on her portrayal of Holiday. Recent developments in the US mean certain songs in the Holiday canon — such as Strange Fruit — ‘have a greater relevance than they did one year ago’.

Audra and director Lonny Price filmed Lady Day on location in New Orleans for HBO; and that experience ‘exposed certain things, both good and bad’, with regards to her approach to Holiday; and she reckoned the London run would expose ‘something’, too.

Audra McDonald performs as Billie Holiday at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York

It was important, she said, to capture the ‘essence’ of Holiday in 1959, when the play is set; but not imitate the artist. ‘If I go at her by just trying to imitate her, I’ll miss her completely.’

Holiday herself warned about people trying to copy her.

McDonald tells the story of when Holiday saw Peggy Lee sing at a club. Lee decided, as a tribute, to imitate some of Holiday’s ways with a songs.

‘Why are you up there trying to sound like me?’ Holiday demanded. ‘Sounding like me is not going to get you anywhere! Be true to who you are as an artist — not me.’

McDonald becomes quieter as she talked about Holiday’s final days.

‘She was starting to slow down, she was drinking much more than she was doing heroin. Her feet and her stomach were swollen with fluid. She was in a bad way. Other people around her knew what was happening; but I don’t know if she knew it or not.’

Fans of the Broadway star can catch her before the Wyndham’s show, when she and her husband will give four concerts at the Leicester Square Theatre in April.

And next month, she can be heard (and seen) singing in the Disney film Beauty And The Beast.