Well why not celebrate your tenth birthday in public? That's how Miranda Hart marked the tenth birthday of her self-named BBC sitcom. In public. At the Palladium. With nibbles. In front of a packed house of screaming fans.
The one-off show was certainly a bit of an odd one. McFly sang Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, The Kingdom Choir sang Lean on Me, there was some Abba, and Ronan Keating serenaded the star. Personally I'd have liked a new episode of the sitcom, which I loved. And I doubt if I was the only one.
Proceedings proper started out with a bit of a catch up blurring the show with the real Miranda. Old family photos, pre-fame TV adverts and then the BBC sitcom breakthrough (not much mention of its radio roots). Hart recalled how she set out to make a sitcom in which she chatted to the camera like her hero Eric Morecambe. And as she said, "it all sort of went really quite well."
One by one the supporting cast pitched up to celebrate the show. Bestie Sarah "Stevie" Hadland did her Heather Small impression as if the last ten years had not happened and with Hart acted out a little scenette onstage. What was more interesting was a clip from the 2008 pilot when Stevie was way more bossy and besuited.
Hart's "Mum 2" Patricia Hodge was reasonably good value, recreating her song-based laughs and featuring in outtakes where she struggled to say the word "clacker".
Perhaps best of all were the #MirandaMoments – real life examples of Miranda-style behaviour, such as woman sneezing into a fellow commuter's open mouth or another woman opening the front door on her knees expecting her grandson to be there and saying "hello little man" only for it to turn out to be the postie's crotch in front of her.
Just as things got a little too frivolous and silly there was a bit of seriousness, as Hart admitted that she is not the gallumphing, galloping type in real life and said that the show was all about acceptance of her physicality and being comfortable in one's own skin. It was a remark that went down extremely well with the audience. But somehow I still think they would have rather have had a new episode than this oddly random love-in.
Watch on catch-up here.
