Miranda

Miranda Hart hints at another series

Miranda Hart hints that there may be another series for her sitcom, despite co-star Tom Ellis' comments.

As series three of Miranda Hart's espresso-fuelled sitcom continues, mum Penny (wonderfully game Patricia Hodge) humiliates our heroine by standing for local government. And to compound the misery, man-that-got-away Gary now has a perky new girlfriend, so Miranda goes clubbing, together with Stevie and Tilly. The friends' competitive dating, and Miranda's inability to stop singing aloud, provide plentiful laughs, but her moustache-wearing at an inappropriate moment is the highlight.

Some purists claim there's no place for slapstick in comedy. Well, humbug to that. Miranda is blissfully funny and her legions of fans are right to ignore the loftier critics.

Why Miranda is now bigger than EastEnders

Miranda Hart's sitcom has huge appeal because of its childlike innocence - and essential niceness.

Miranda, BBC One, review

Perhaps I'm just getting old. I'm sure I'd have loved this show when I was six.

I don't get Miranda, the sitcom. I've tried, and I can sort of see why other people do when it's at its giddy best. On the other hand, I do absolutely get Miranda Hart, who is a great comedian. When the sitcom humiliates her character, I can't laugh. But when Hart plays a line that is about attitude alone, I can't not. Odd, but true.

Miranda Hart returned with a Boxing Day special to kick off a third series. Like many a comedy before it, the shtick is to take a daffy comedienne and fictionalise her neuroses as entertainment. Essentially postmodern slapstick, the sitcom trades in laughing at its own pratfalls, which in this episode consisted of Miranda tripping over things, getting drenched by things, getting her clothing stuck in things and, as ever, eating sweet things. Such fun? Yes, but a little of Miranda's infantilised portrait of 30something singledom goes a surprisingly long way.

Miranda Hart on mirth, marriage - and Matthew Perry

The comedienne is galumphing, gorgeous and game for a laugh - not even turning 40 can wipe the smile off her face...

Well, hello to you. And let's welcome back the Clown Queen
of Television for a tinsel-strewn edition to open series three.

It's been a long, two-year wait for fans - we don't just like Miranda, we love it - but you'll recall our unwieldy heroine (Miranda Hart) hadn't quite got it together with Gary. They've agreed "just friends", but she's determined to have fun at Christmas, despite starting a new job and being forced to diet.

Nearly all the regulars, and their catchphrases, are back: mum Penny ("Such fun") is still hopeless with new technology; friend Tilly ("Bear with") posh-mangles the English language; and joke-shop colleague Stevie ("What have you done today..?") supplies the crucial love/hate dynamic with Miranda.

It's all effortlessly, irresistibly funny, brimming with gags and glorious silliness. Hart's woman-child persona and total lack of vanity in the cause of comedy should be celebrated... with a biscuit blizzard, perhaps.

Miranda was TV equivalent of the One Pound Fish Song

It was very much more of the same from Ms Hart and her crew. And if that's your thing, then congratulations on the Christmas spoils. Personally, I'm at the 'strongly dislike' end of the Marmite spectrum with this one.