Miranda Hart

Miranda Hart is one of those performers who just exude likeableness. Every time I see her on TV I want her to be my new best friend. Her new sitcom - based on her Radio 2 series Miranda Hart's Joke Shop - trades on her gawkiness and the fact that, at 6ft 1in, she is often mistaken for a man.

Miranda (the on-screen one at least) is so clumsy she makes Bridget Jones look like Sienna Miller. With many of the same cast from the radio show, Miranda's asides to camera and the potential for some great visual gags make this an effortless joy.

The set dressers have let her down massively though. You might be able to get away on the radio with a joke shop that looks like a front room full of pottery and glassware. But on TV, a joke shop should look like a joke shop.

A new star is born. Miranda Hart wins a first full series for her semi-autobiographical sitcom, and it's a real treat. Playing the eponymous lanky, hapless, agoraphobic joke shop owner, the comic clearly has plenty of gag potential, as she fails to impress her Sloane Ranger childhood rival Tilly (Sally Phillips), her over-bearing mum (Patricia Hodge) or the men she sets her cap at. Warm, affectionate, and, best of all, hilarious.

Miranda Hart (and Saunders, Smack the Pony, Not Going Out) has finally moved off the fringes and been given her own sitcom - a spin-off from her Sony-nominated Radio 2 show. Set in a joke shop, this is classic misfit comedy with a mildly surreal edge, and Hart's painfully self-deprecating humour is very funny in places.

New sitcom Miranda is the first television series from stand-up comedian Miranda Hart. It's set in Miranda's joke shop, run by Stevie (Sarah Hadland), as Miranda has no business acumen herself. The show has a semi-autobiographical style as she struggles with her boarding-school background, body shape and a mother who's keen to get her married off.

Although very much a traditional sitcom, the show entertains due to Miranda's wit and large helpings of silliness. It also breaks the fourth wall by having Miranda talk directly to the audience in her asides to camera; this is hard to pull off, but it works well.

I warmed to the show because of Miranda's charm and I'd spend more time with her - but please, oh please, don't make me marry her.

Three things make me laugh: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, South Park and now Miranda, a new comedy for BBC2 starring Miranda Hart. Boy, she's a big lass... and funny. And I don't mean whimsical, wry, dark or clever, I mean fart gags, chocolate willies and ludicrous set-ups that deliver great visual gags! It's all rather old-fashioned, right down to the It Ain't Half Hot Mum credits, but I laughed, out loud, a lot. Nice.

Hello from Miranda

Miranda introduces her new show... Miranda.

Miranda Hart stands head and shoulders above the rest

Fact and fiction blur for the BBC's new sitcom queen, who makes a virtue out of being more than 6ft tall.

Women have always been under-represented on Have I Got News For You (last weeks appearance by frock-wearing artist Grayson Perry notwithstanding). So its great to see the comedienne and actress, and the tallest woman in comedy, Miranda Hart taking her first spin in the presenters chair.

Already a familiar face from comedies like Angelos, Hyperdrive and playing the cleaning lady in Not Going Out, Miranda is now going to have her very own sitcom based on her Radio 2 series. It will be starting soon on BBC2.

Shes been on Have I Got News For You's panel before, so has no trouble holding her own against captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton.

Stand-up success and great sitcom-writing rarely go together, but Miranda Hart's semi-autobiographical material - posh girl from boarding school struggles to cope with body image, misanthropy and trouser presses - makes the perfect transition. It's like French and Saunders in the early days.

Apparently Monday Monday has spent a couple of years gathering dust on ITV Drama's shelf prior to broadcast. It is difficult to understand why, as this eight-part comedy drama is nothing if not likeable.

An ensemble piece, Monday Monday follows the lives and loves of white collar staff at a recently relocated supermarket chain.

It is hardly the most innovative or challenging of dramas, but it has charm and humour to spare and a top notch cast that includes Holly Aird, Jenny Agutter and Fay Ripley. Miranda Hart, comedy actress du jour, has a minor role, which gives you an idea of how long ago the series was made.

Ripley, an actress I have developed an irrational aversion to, is actually very good as Christine, an ex-alcoholic working in human resources who is totally lacking in any resources of her own.