Miranda's pratfalls have been done with panache, and I will miss them
|
Version 0 of 1. The final episode of a hit sitcom is usually a lap of honour round the media: The IT Crowd, Friends and Gavin & Stacey were awarded some or all of the traditional valedictory gifts of extended episodes, background documentaries and celebs choosing golden moments. But there is another sort of show for which the laments of the goodbye back-slappers risk being drowned out by the backlashers holding their own goodbye celebration. In a preview of what will happen to Mrs Brown’s Boys and Derek, this two-faced departure applies to Miranda. Miranda Hart’s self-starring, self-written and self-named comedy will leave TV in a final episode on New Year’s Day. As Ricky Gervais has shown, it is not unknown for a performer to attract devoted fans and implacable detractors, and Hart at least has the consolation that her howl-mob is smaller than his. The reasons for the enmity are also very different. The controversy over Gervais most often involves suggestions that his performance seems inseparable from his personality and that his combative attitudes in standup and on social media escalate his enemies. Hart, though, is openly (in the tradition stretching back to Tony Hancock and Mary Tyler Moore) playing a fictional alter ego with the same name on the chequebook and her public declarations, in interviews and on stage, have tended to be shy and anxious. In her case, the complaints of the opposition turn on the alleged retro nature of her comedy, with its reliance on slapstick (clumsy Miranda rarely stays on her feet for a whole show), catchphrases (such as the “what I call a” of the protagonist’s mother, played by Patricia Hodge) and a somewhat soppy romantic subplot, featuring her out-of-sync passion for the handsome Gary. The latter is where she most overlaps with Gervais who, although often accused of bleakness and bad taste, is a closet softy who had a Mills & Boon strand running through The Office, Extras and Derek. Fans of Miranda – including me – would argue that retro done well is preferable to edgy done badly, and that each of the old-fashioned elements – pratfalls, signature sayings and love story – is handled with panache. And Hart is echoing TV comedy’s past not from conservatism or sloppiness but a scholastic fascination with these conventions. The key to her comedic instincts was a recent Christmas documentary in which Hart profiled Morecambe & Wise, more or less positioning herself as a female reincarnation of Eric: baffled, tactless, gangly. Her trademark direct address to the camera, or sideways glances at it, are also a version of Morecambe’s asides and double takes. But, though following in a tradition, the show also contains originality, in such painfully funny sequences as Miranda pretending to be on an exotic holiday while staying in a hotel round the corner from her flat, and a weird storyline in which she and her mother are confined in the office of an almost-silent therapist. Unless Hart changes her mind in the future, her eponymous comedy will consist of 20 episodes, a familiar sort of figure in contemporary British TV. Whereas hit American comedies have often run for a decade or more – partly because standard contracts there include long-term options, and re-run syndication is most lucrative with a large volume of episodes – the younger generation of UK comedians seem increasingly influenced by the example of John Cleese, who halted Fawlty Towers after only two series consisting of 12 episodes. Probably not coincidentally, Ricky Gervais stopped after 14 of The Office and 13 of Extras, while Gavin & Stacey (20) and The IT Crowd (25) also left the audience wanting more. Another factor is that stars now tend to outgrow their sitcoms very fast. Actors in hit comedies have always done other things: the cast of Dad’s Army and The Good Life were routinely to be found in West End and regional theatres. But a successful peak-time half-hour can now be the foundation for an industry of arena comedy tours, bestselling books and even Hollywood or Broadway careers. This model was established by Gervais (followed by his Office co-star Martin Freeman), then by Chris O’Dowd and Richard Ayoade of The IT Crowd and James Corden from Gavin & Stacey. And, while Miranda Hart hasn’t yet become a US star, she has accumulated all the other trappings of the portfolio comedian: standup tour (the cannily branded “What I Call My Tour”), books and other TV roles. Symbolically of her business, in a double rare since the days of Ronnie Barker, she appears in two shows back to back on Christmas Day, with the penultimate Miranda immediately succeeded by the tinsel special of Call the Midwife. Detractors will hope that she metaphorically falls flat on her face with the festive closing episodes; admirers that she literally does so, at least once. But we will also expect more of the verbal and tonal invention that have made Miranda a big deal although, in the way of sitcoms these days, only a small part of Hart’s expanding career. |