Hurrah! Miranda Hart is funny in real life.
That may sound a strangely self-evident way to start a review about one of the funniest British comedians at work today but let me explain.
I first came across Miranda Hart the way many people did – via her very successful BBC sitcom Miranda, with the third and most recent six-part series airing in 2012-13.
She, of course, existed well before that building up an ever more noticeable profile, and thus following, in a series of character-based touring shows like Miranda Hart – Throbs, It’s All About Me and Miranda Hart’s House Party, and British sitcoms such as Not Going Out, Hyperdrive and Monday Monday, as well as writing and starring in her own radio show, Miranda Hart’s Joke Shop, in 2008, upon which her eponymous TV show is based.
Her ever growing fame, which Miranda herself will assure you simply brings with it more opportunities to appear awkward in front of even more people than normal, gave her the opportunity to extend her acting wings with a regular series role in Call the Midwife among the projects that came her way.
Prolific though she has been, her Work in Progress tour, a series of intimate shows in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, which is the precursor to an extensive UK and Ireland tour called My, What I Call, Live Show is her dedicated stand up and for the first chance for audiences in the Antipodes at least to see her live and uncensored in person.
And, to my unending relief, she did not disappoint.
Not that, honestly, I actually thought she would, but doing live shows and recorded TV shows and film are two, quite obviously different beasts, and having not been exposed to her work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the touring shows mentioned earlier, I wasn’t entirely sure what she would be like in person.
She was, as I suspected she might be, very much like her work in Miranda and her book Is It Just Me?, refreshingly down to earth, eschewing cheap jokes and everyday observations in favour of quirky excursions into the mundanities of life and social interaction that recall the classic period of British humour in the ’70s and ’80s.
After ushering us into her “cocoon”, one of several words she adores including “placards”, “embargo” and “plunge” where she had prepared a buffet of lamingtons, Rum and Cokes and Doritos corn chips (many of which eventually found their way into audience hands), she moved quickly into discussions of everything from the difficulties of knowing exactly how to greet someone at a party – do you single kiss? Double kiss? Shake hands? What if each party makes a different choice? – to the inherent dangers of eating flaky vol au vents (crumbly residue on what she likes to call her “breast shelf”).
Her gift for humour-laden storytelling, punctuated by the sort of easily relatable social faux pas to which we have all fallen victim at some point – who hasn’t walked briskly in the wrong direction only to have to stop dramatically, checking as visibly as possible your phone or watch, before turning heel and heading the right way – never failed her once, the audience laughter a near constant echo through the comfortably intimate surrounds of Sydney University’s Seymour Centre.
And it was her attention to her audience that marked the show as something special.
While she did deliver more than the requisite number of wry observations, humourous asides, and social critiques – her call for all of us to be able to act like 6 year olds at parties (galloping anyone?), and visual representation of the difficulties of changing fitted sheets and doona/duvet covers were highlights in a crowded field of on the mark laugh out loud witticisms – it was her commitment to audience participation that marked the show as something out of the ordinary.
From dividing the audience into groups that had to vocally represent the various sounds made at an upper crust British social event (“Such fun!”, “Yup Yup, Yup”) to a singalong of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” (one of the many “camp” songs she delighted in playing throughout the show) and some intermission speed dating between Michael and Christina, plucked willingly from the crowd before her (for the record, I don’t think it’s true love), the wildly enthusiastic fans were almost as much a part of the show as Hart herself.
While there is higher than likely chance we would have laughed our socks off anyway at the idea of Miranda, high on pot, running naked into a camp full of boy scouts, or imitating the various walks employed by herself, and yes ourselves, as airports, her willingness to make her show a group event turned Work in Progress from passive, though unendingly hilarious, entertainment to something genuinely involving and unique.
Together with Miranda Hart’s willingness to toss aside any pretense to having it all together, and her genuine love of putting “the jolly back in life” regardless of how oddly she is regarded, her camaraderie with her fans created the sort of convivial mutual love affair that is rare at even the most ardent of stand up comedy shows.
She is that rare breed among performers, a comedian without (readily obvious) ego, happy to dance like an uncoordinated idiot, admit her yearning to be just like Beyonce and confess to all manner of shortcomings because she is acutely aware, as are we all, that life, no matter how hard we try at it, is always going to be a Work in Progress.
And laughing at it, and we laughed a great deal, is far preferable to the depressing alternative.