Time flies when you’re having such fun!
It’s not hard to believe that Miranda Hart’s eponymous TV show began back in the noughties due to the amount of times I’ve re-watched it! The comedian burst onto our screens with her self-written hit Miranda, and changed comedy forever! Hart created a character who was unapologetically herself, buffoonish, clumsy, and completely hilarious! These characteristics are what makes the sitcom so many people’s comfort show; there’s nothing better than cuddling up with a blanket and watching Miranda read Mein Kampf to kids or pretend to be a Take That tribute act with best friend Stevie and a random customer. The character was an amazing display of how fun it is to just be yourself!
The three series follow Miranda as she navigates her thirty-somethings with a pushy middle-class mother (Penny, played by Patricia Hodge), a workaholic best friend/ joke shop co-manager (Stevie, played by Sarah Hadland), and a chef who she’s head over heels for (Gary, played by Tom Ellis). The cast is all absolutely perfect in their roles; the chemistry between them is completely believable and they mesh perfectly! The group, along with barman Clive (James Holmes) and posh boarding school friend Tilly (Sally Phillips), are exactly the friends you want to navigate the trials and tribulations of life with!
Miranda and Stevie in the 2010 Christmas Special
Via Metro UK
The third season kicks off festively with a Christmas special, where the joke shop has gone under and Miranda and Stevie look for new employment. This is one of my favourite episodes because I can very clearly remember watching it with my family in 2012. As an already established major fan of the show, all I cared about on Christmas Day was watching this episode, it was my Queen’s Speech. The episode is memorable for funny moments like Miranda and Penny’s interview with a man called Dick Twist, and Miranda’s penchant for maracas. This is also the episode where Miranda meets love interest, Mike (Bo Poraj).
The series follows as Miranda seemingly moves on from Gary and into the arms of ‘lovely Mike’. In episode three, Miranda hosts a dinner party with Penny, Stevie, a parking attendant Stevie picks up from the street (Joe Wilkinson), Gary, Gary’s new girlfriend Rose (Naomi Bentley), Mike, and Mike’s father Valerie (Tim Piggot-Smith). Things couldn’t go worse for Miranda in this episode; she has already farted in front of Valerie, her burnt crêpes Suzette falls from the ceiling onto Valerie’s toupee, and Penny insults him over a baby monitor. Miranda worries she isn’t good enough for Mike, an insecurity that runs throughout the show, but he tells her he loves her exactly as she is. Secretly though, we’re all still rooting for Gary and Miranda!
By the end of the series, we see Miranda try to get over both Gary and Mike by moving to Morocco, as you do. I remember feeling incredibly sad as Stevie waved Miranda off at the airport, worried this would be the end of the show for good. Luckily kittens had crawled into Miranda’s suitcase so she was sent back home, again, a very normal thing to happen! In the end, Spoiler Alert, Gary stops Miranda from getting on a train to Wick, and we leave her on a cliff-hanger as both Mike and Gary propose.
Although I absolutely love the show, series 3 was my least favourite, because Miranda never truly learned to love herself, which seems hypocritical from a show that champions being yourself. This series showed that the most important thing for Miranda was to find a husband, who she seemed to place all her worth on, however, it’s pretty harsh of me to reject Miranda’s happiness. On the bright side, Miranda introduced a more relatable female character into comedy, and a character the viewer feels safe with and accepted by.
Miranda finished in 2015 after a two part special in which she decides whether to marry Gary or Mike. As is tradition throughout the show, and perhaps the inspiration for Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, Miranda turns to the viewer with the most heart-breaking final lines of a TV show; “Dearest chums, I don’t know when, or if, we’ll see each other again, but just thank you for being the most amazing friends. Love oo.”
I love oo too Miranda x
The series 3 trailer for Miranda (BBC) can be watched below:
Via UKTV
