Patricia Hodge

PG Wodehouse's Uncle Fred In The Springtime was as replete as Twelfth Night with characters busy at impersonation and improbable plots designed to deliver love. Each performance was a gem of eccentric humour including Alfred Molina as Fred, director Martin Jarvis as Lord Emsworth and Patricia Hodge as his sister, 'a fiend in human shape'. As the new Will.i.am on the block says every other minute on The Voice: "It's dope."

Miranda is very much an acquired taste. Some people think it's a skilful frolic through the campest excesses of physical comedy; others think it's a mindless collection of all things base and juvenile. The rest of us know that it's both.

The last in the current series was, naturally, a festive episode, which gave Hart the perfect excuse to indulge the gluttony and childishness that makes her so endearing.

An episode of Miranda can often be a mixed bag, but at this time of year, with everyone in a forgiving mood because they're so happy (and drunk), Hart got away with a lot of the more irritating qualities of her work, with help from the fantastic Patricia Hodge and Sally Phillips.

Tonight was also the first we saw of Miranda's father, played by Tom Conti, who filled most of the episode's falling-over quota, so that Miranda finally remained pretty vertical throughout the episode.

As she waited in for a package and then missed the delivery because of her intense dislike of carol singers, Hart proved that for all her larking about, she is a great observer of everyday dilemmas. Anyone who has ever come home to find the dreaded, 'Sorry we missed you' card in their hallway would have related to her frustration.

Best of all, she didn't fold and give us what we were hoping for in the form of a long-awaited kiss with Gary, leaving the door wide open for a will-they-won't-they third series of this excellent show.

How to describe Miranda Hart's style of comedy? Certainly, she throws everything into it - panto, slapstick, a little social satire, bad singing, malapropisms, farting. Whatever works. Of course, the biggest thing she throws into it is herself. And if she lands on her backside, well, hey - job done! The second series of Miranda started as her fans hope it means to go on, with a taxi whipping off her party dress and roaring away with it caught in the door. Magnificent.

If this had been the Carry On team, they'd have chosen saucy little Babs Windsor to be stranded in the street in her smalls. I'm not suggesting that Miranda is more of a Hattie Jacques, but oh lordy how much funnier - and she knows it - to have a woman of size lumbering up the street in bra, big pants and unattractive tights, valiantly putting art ahead of dignity.

Do women mind that men would find that such a hoot? It seems safe to assume that Miranda's constituency is vastly female, though her overarching rom-com plot - the perennial pursuit of Gary from the local gastropub - is merely a slave to Miranda's primary purpose of making a show of herself. But what a show! Listen to that live studio audience - a pit of hyenas feeding on their own laughter. More! More!

Sometimes, it was the mock-heroic way she told 'em ("I am with much news that I shall now birth!"); sometimes, a cheeky aside to the camera did the trick, or even a simple ungainly twirl. No one cares where the laughs come from, but come they must and do. Miranda's higgledy-piggledy castle of fun is built on instinct rather than theory.

The show cloaks itself in wholesome, old-fashioned japery with its broad misunderstandings ("I said ghosts, not goats!") and knowing winks at Hi-de-Hi! and Frank Spencer, and the way Miranda's mother (Patricia Hodge) flits in and out as if through a time portal to a 1950s Whitehall farce.

But there's always a sharp sensibility at work - in Hart's gleeful observations of Miranda's post-Bridget Jones victimhood, of the girly fads and shibboleths ("Fabulasmic!") of her fatuous posh friends - and if anyone is more hilariously note-perfect at being one than Sally Phillips (who is literally a scream as the hyper-amused Tilly), I'd hate to meet them. So, yes, more.

Miranda really shouldn't work. If it were any more mired in Seventies sitcom cliches it would feature Terry Scott and June Whitfield in a shop called Grace Brothers.

It's also terribly blighted by awful canned laughter and comedy signposts probably visible from Mars. Yet, despite all this, Miranda is occasionally very funny indeed. This is mostly down to Miranda Hart's bravery. How many 6ft 1in women would write a scene in which they're running down the road in ill-fitting underwear and flesh-cloured tights?

It's Hart's heart that makes Miranda so endearing. And because she falls over a lot and is oddly reminiscent of Frankie Howerd.

The first in this second series sees her trying to get over the departure of her improbably handsome boyfriend by becoming the type of woman 'who just grabs a wheatgerm smoothie in between work and going out because that's enough to keep her going even though she went for a jog at lunchtime - and enjoyed it.' At this point mum (Patricia Hodge) pipes up: 'Darling, I'm putting on a whites wash - if your pants are dirty, pop them off and I'll pop them in.' Miranda shouldn't work but somehow it does.

Miranda is here for those who miss 1970s slapstick and shows like Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Miranda Hart's namesake character is a Francesca Spencer, prone to falling over, having her dress pulled off by a departing taxi, getting stuck on a sushi carousel and getting into embarrassing misunderstandings. It's kind of like the spoof "Hennimore" sitcom from That Mitchell And Webb Look, where the joke is that you know exactly what joke is coming up.

Done straight it would be terrible, but Hart's blithe honesty that it's all just a silly sitcom, complete with cast members waving bye-bye at the end, is disarming.

After bringing us up to speed on the events of the last series, she happily declares: "Right, let's jolly on with the show," and the whole thing's like a community panto, where you know the routines are all ancient but you giggle along a bit anyway, mostly because everyone involved seems to be having so much fun.

Patricia Hodge, her snooty mum, has a good catchphrase: she's always saying of some ordinary activity, "it's what I call ..." then using the same word that everyone else uses, like "a walk". It could, as I call it, "catch on".

I'm finding it - unusually for me - hard to find even one fault with this BBC2 comedy. It's funny; it's very funny, and I really wasn't expecting it to be, primarily because before I watched it myself, I'd heard the word 'slapstick' in relation to it, and I'm always wary of that.

That was a word used when describing Big Top and that 'show' should be lined up and shot. Thankfully, Miranda doesn't need putting out of its misery, but I think it does need moving to a more prestigious timeslot on BBC1.

And the main character, Miranda, played by Miranda Hart, is wonderfully engaging. She's not only comedically self-deprecating, she's witty too with rapid fire and genuinely funny character interplay.

Her supporting cast are great too; Patricia Hodge has lost none of her chameleon like acting abilities in the time she's been absent from our screens and the relative newbies in the show are, I'm sure, destined for good things if their performances in Miranda are anything to go by.

One of the most charming things for me about this show is that Miranda Hart has perhaps laid bare some of the things that have most probably been burdens for her to bear in her real life, and opened them up to comedic interpretation.

The jokes and running issues about her size, looks, accent and so on are of course funny, but I can't help but wonder if at times, the real Miranda has found them hugely hurtful? But if she has, she's managed to parlay those barbs into he-who-laughs-last as the cheques roll in for this show. And others that may follow - I hope.

And another pleasing fact about the show is that there's something in it to which most of us can relate. The snipes from mother, the odd friends, the unsuitable job... there really is something to appeal to pretty much everyone in Miranda, and I hope when this series ends, there's another already in the pipeline.

Over the past three weeks, word of mouth has steadily been growing about new BBC Two comedy, Miranda. At first glance, it's a rather curious proposition: a star vehicle for Miranda Hart, which is sort of in the style of an old-school sitcom, features Tom Ellis and Patricia Hodge, and has a mixture of slapstick style gags and great observational wit. On paper, there's no way this show would work, and for the first few minutes of an episode you're thinking 'what the hell is this?'

But persevere with it, as many have done, and the delights of this show start to become apparent. Miranda is a much warmer presence than some of her other TV appearances might have implied. Her pieces to camera are actually more endearing than annoying most of the time, and the supporting cast look like they're having a lot of fun.

Yes, it's couched in old sitcom values, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing. There's something rather sweet and familiar about it, even down to the old Croft and Perry style end credit waving sequence. A lot of the humour in here feels real and accessible. And if you're still not convinced - Grace Dent thinks it's marvellous, and she never lies.

For several years Miranda Hart has been cheerfully stealing scenes from under the noses of her more illustrious co-stars, so it was only a matter of time before TV producers rewarded her with a comedy series of her own.

Episode one of Miranda would appear to justify their faith. It has a genuine sense of fun, a distinct style, several very sharp lines and some cleverly constructed set-pieces. But, God, it was manic. In the words of Michael Winner in that memorably atrocious insurance advert: "Calm down, dear."

Hart, who also wrote the script, works very hard for her laughs, but an occasional change of pace would have been very welcome. It might also have afforded a little breathing space for some character development, which was in seriously short supply. A disproportionate amount of the jokes were predicated on Hart's size, which, personally, I don't find particularly disproportionate.

When not addressing the camera, Hart is busy bantering with joke shop co-owner Stevie (Sarah Hadland), being socially inept and lusting after hunky chef Gary (Tom Ellis) who, in an interesting reversal of traditional sitcom gender objectifying, is underwritten to the point of non-existence. Hart is much more generous towards her female co-stars, providing Patricia Hodge and Sally Phillips with the opportunity to do some scene-stealing of their own as neurotic mother and bitchy best friend respectively.

Miranda is apparently created in a 1970s retro sitcom factory in which leftover bits of Penelope Keith and Felicity Kendal had been mixed up with some Cath Kidston wallpaper to create a kind of comedy mache, if you will - which was in turn left to dry inside a set made of balsa wood and tissues (though sadly not in front of a live studio audience) before viewers are invited to see whether their laughter makes it fall over or merely wobble a bit before righting itself...

Comedically speaking, Miranda Hart's size is apparently everything, so I fear she can never be considered funny outside of the context of her height, and nobody ever says that about Stephen Merchant.

Hart presumably came to terms with the innately sexist Tall = Funny equation (she's 6ft 1in) some years ago, so gags focusing on the idea of a thirtysomething woman who is clearly slightly surprised to be 6ft 1in are bound to feel a bit weird, as if Hart had only just swallowed the contents of the "Drink me" bottle and woken up all oooooh-errr!

But if you can accept the idea that a large lady tripping over cardboard boxes a lot, and being styled like Danny La Rue ("Oh Miranda, why are you dressed like a transvestite?!"), and having an unrequited crush on a handsome chef, not to mention Patricia Hodge as her elegantly trim mother, are intrinsically amusing, then Miranda is very amusing.

For everybody else, though, it's merely a cheap-looking sitcom starring a big girl who keeps being mistaken for a man ("Did he just call me Sir?"), despite not looking remotely like one. Kind of camp, sort of silly and a little bit sweet, but not, I think, quite enough of any of those to matter, Miranda feels like a throwback to an ancient, lost comedy era that is, if not quite pre-Cambrian, then certainly mid-20th century, pre-Cowell.

Miranda Hart and Patricia Hodge drive this amusing rather than funny sitcom. Somehow, we like it more than we should. Give it a try.