Miranda Hart's Joke Shop

Thanks to Radio 4 Extra, listeners had an opportunity to hear the pilot episode of Miranda Hart's Joke Shop, first broadcast in May 2007, and also featuring Alison Steadman and Katy Brand.

This was amusing to hear but it was even obvious back then that Hart's wonderful visual humour - including her asides to the audience - meant she belonged on the small screen.

Miranda Hart's Joke Shop is likeably silly, the maladroit heroine engagingly self-destructing.

Miranda Hart is shaping up as the Big Lady of the future. If Dawn French built a career out of being hefty without mentioning it, and Jo Brand did it by mentioning it incessantly, Hart's new sitcom (so much a trailer for a TV version that they are already filming the TV version) trades on her not only being big, but very tall and extremely posh. And frequently taken for a man. She has never had sex (a consignment of chocolate penises comes into the shop. They're very lifelike, she says. No they're not, says her waspish co-owner). She has terrible chat-up lines: I weighed my breasts. They cost £1.48 to post, and you'd have to use Parcel Force. She's terrific. Wasted on TV.