REVIEWS
Angelos : Channel 5, 2007
- “This sitcom was in development hell for over four years - but in our opinion it was worth the wait. Angelo's is a warm, subtle comedy with the characters right at the heart of it - something many recent sitcoms have neglected. The characters all neatly defined here, and each funny in their own right - which makes putting them together in the same setting all the more fun.
Miranda Hart as the taxi driver, Simon Farnaby as the mime artist, and Kim Wall as the un-employed Russell are our favourites - they don't even need to speak to raise a smile - their characters' backgrounds and mannerisms are enough alone to do this.”
British Sitcom Guide
Hyperdrive : BBC2, 2007
- “I like Hyperdrive a lot. It reminds me of that TV classic Buck Rogers in the 25th Century which, in my book, is a very good thing indeed. The effects are genuinely special, the aliens are rarely less than splendid, the plotlines are imaginative, the scripts clever and the cast superb. Miranda Hart, in particular, is a joy to behold.
”
The Stage
- “Hurrah, a new face to fall in love with. Miranda Hart in BBC Two's space comedy Hyperdrive has this wonderful, foghorn-sounding, posh monotone: it makes a joke out of even saying “Hello”. In the opening episode of the new series her character Teal was reunited with a man she had fallen in love with at an agnostics' summer camp. They nostalgically revisited their favourite songs: “He might have made the trees/He may have made the sun/Oh thank you if you' re there/If you aren't we shan't despair.” Brilliant: give her her own show.”
The Times
Miranda Hart's Joke Shop : BBC Radio 2, 2008
- “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,&rdquo 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.”
Chris Campling, The Times, 28 August 2008
- “Miranda Hart's Joke Shop is likeably silly, the maladroit heroine engagingly self-destructing.”
Martin Hoyle, The Financial Times, 30 August 2008
Cruising : Bush Theatre, London 2006
- “through Miranda Hart's magnificent performance as the lugubrious, resilient, critical Maureen... A whole world of old-age, and age-old, hope and loneliness opens up. Compelling.”
Evening Standard
- “one person rises above this and its worth crossing London to see her. Plummy, relaxed Miranda Hart...”
Susannah Clapp in Observer
- “one performance rises above this, however. Miranda Hart plays Maureen - a 71 year-old with the hide of a rhinoceros, the libido of an alley cat and the broken heart of a swan - with delicious deadpan restraint.”
Lyn Gardener in Guardian
- “Miranda Hart in particular gives an astonishingly persuasive performance as the plummy-voiced Maureen, who is left with only her cat for company at the end.”
Daily Telegraph
- “Miranda Hart is deliciously tart as Maureen.”
Time Out
- “Miranda Hart as Maureen also burrows into the character of this demanding, judgemental and terribly lonely woman to an affecting degree. Given the completely unguarded comments she makes, it would have been easy to play her purely for laughs; Hart thankfully goes beyond this.”
Metro
- “Most outstanding is Miranda Hart, who makes Maureen immensely real.”
FT
- “Comedian Miranda Hart is particularly superb as the no-nonsense Maureen, relaying her character's pronouncements on men and sex without ever making the woman into a laughing stock, even in her most forthright moments. It's a sympathetic and balanced performance.”
OMH.com
- “Miranda Hart as Maureen soldiers on with relentless pragmatism in search of a suitable partner. Her delivery is spot on and the odd raise of an eyebrow or turn of the head, speak volumes beyond given dialogue.”
The Stage
Miranda Hart's House Party : Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Festival 2005
- “Miranda Hart is new to town and is having a party to help her meet new friends. Miranda is terribly upper-middle class, enthusiastic with it, simply bursting with energy and willing us all to have a good time. She's got the party planner and timetable, assuring us there's something for everyone as she proudly points out the bowl of Es between the Tennents and After Eights.
Of course the Quality Street is much in evidence - "you know you love the big purple ones, madam" - and while the rest of the audience plays pass the parcel, Miranda elicits some deliciously insane contributions from the front row as she recollects her posh nob set - all farting, belching, racist rightwingers, who take every pain to avoid social faux-pas yet gleefully commit every un PC trick in the book.
Miranda periodically disappears as her nice but dim public school cousin - cruelly, funnily played by Neil Edmond - emerges from the kitchen with his latest disgusting crisp dip when suddenly the doorbell announces a succession of guests, including horsey friend Poo, the disturbing couple from the rare breed centre, the bloke she always fancied at uni, the girlfriend overflowing with proud tales of the fiancé who still hasn't married her after a decade. All of them look suspiciously like Miranda.
And so the comedy turns to a far deeper level as we realise that what's really unveiling itself before us is a portrait of loneliness. Like Joyce Grenfell, Hart walks such a knife-edge between comedy and drama that at times you don't know whether to laugh or cry. But laugh all the way through the audience does. I've rarely witnessed such a brilliantly pulled-off piece as this, one that touches every soul in the audience (and manages to get most of them onstage by the end).
”
Nick Awde
Finger Food : Edinburgh 2004
- “brilliantly funny”
The Stage
- “something very special... five star performance”
Three Weeks
- “very good”
Daily Mail
It's All About Me : Pleasance, Edinburgh 2003
- “imagine Dawn French at her best but taller”
Finiancial Times
- “Hart proves a commanding presence... ...her performance is strong and the laughs come thick and fast”
The Stage
- “Very funny”
Fest
- “she dances with the grace of a three-legged hippo”
Chortle
- “What a fabulous show. Miranda Hart has bits of Joyce Grenfell and Jennifer Saunders about her, but a whole lot more that’s wholly original, engaging, marvellously imaginative and funny. Its impossible for the room not to love her. Swathes of this show reach eye-wateringly funny crescendos.”
Edfringe.com
- “Miranda Hart is a very talented woman... ...she’s quick, very bright and naturally comedic”
Paramount Comedy
Miranda Hart-Throbs! : Pleasance, Edinburgh 2002
- “the funniest woman over 5ft 11" I have ever worked with”
Arabella Weir
- “I hit on a genuinely funny show called Miranda Hart-Throbs. It is a sketch of the desparate last-minute rehearsals for a show in which the understudy is to take the lead because the principal is drunk. 'This,' I thought, 'is my discovery. I shall hurry home and tell my son of this brilliant unknown comedienne.' Then I discovered the comedienne is called Miranda Hart, and everyone knows about her except me, as she was in the television show Smack The Pony.”
Edward Enfield, Daily Mail
- “funny and well-written... Hart triumphs in some style”
Sunday Times
- “bright future”
Evening Standard
- “In a word: galumphing. Miranda Hart now tops my list of fantasy sleep-over guests, and had me praying that every middle-class woman with an Alice Band was this hysterical. This is a drop-dead silly hour of entertainment that has no pretensions other than being a ramshackle, conspire-with-the-audience mess. Each laugh was prolonged, often coming in a second and third wave, egged on by Miranda's magnificent gawkiness and even more magnificent breasts. Her supporting cast were fine send-ups of Fringe staples (particularly the incompetent Northern work-experience lighting girl) and every pun and concept was a cheesy delight. It's all been seen before, but it's delirious fun to revel in such non-postmodern treats as comedy glasses and 'audience plants'. This is a big and sweaty triumph. Go go go! *****”
Three Weeks
- “Hart has a posh, ditzy charm and is at her best when improvising and feeding off the audience”
The Scotsman
- “One of the top six comediennes at the Edinburgh Festival 2002”
Daily Telegraph
Orange Girls : Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh 1999 & 2000
- “classic double act”
Time Out
- “true professional style... ...rather like French and Saunders in their humour and their relationship with each other”
Evening News
- “they are very funny”
Daily Mail
- “the future's bright, the future's Orange Girls”
The Scotsman