Miranda Does Christmas, review: 'the jollity felt forced'
One thing is certain about Christmas wish lists. You don’t always get what you want. For the many, many of us who have enjoyed Miranda Hart’s self-titled BBC sitcom over the years, it was too much to ask for another Christmas special after the ones that concluded the series in 2014 and 2015.
Instead, we got Hart herself, hosting this festive chat show in front of a roaring fire, with guests David Tennant, Prue Leith, Susan Calman and, briefly, Sam Smith.
It came complete with Christmas sweaters and revealing tipples – Bailey’s for Tennant, champagne for Calman, bellini for Leith. The basic set-up was to chew over some of the things that have become staples of how we celebrate this great consumer fiesta grafted onto a Christian festival with deep pagan roots.
Christmas cards, songs and individual family traditions were all up for discussion, with some flat dismissals, such as Leith’s “I haven’t sent a Christmas card for 40 years”, and some appealing stories, the best of which was Calman’s about her grandmother’s insistence that everyone receive a present from the Christmas log.
The worst moment was probably the outbreak of festive dancing at the front of the stage, which was about as embarrassing as a disco with your relatives in the living room.
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Like many festive programmes recorded early in December, the jollity felt forced, with the producers struggling to spin the show out to 45 minutes, relying on a public date between two audience members attended by Tennant as waiter and Calman as a strolling player, and filmed segments of Hart carrying out some of the “joy-filled tasks” from the book Miranda’s Daily Dose of Such Fun!, which she wrote for Comic Relief this year. They weren’t; it wasn’t.
Hart never really seemed to be enjoying herself, except when teasing Leith about her Great British Bake Off gaffe earlier this year, when she tweeted the winner before the final went out. Even this was accompanied by Leith’s clever but slightly sour riposte that she could still tweet about this show because it was pre-recorded. There were laughs but they just didn’t come naturally. Sadly, there’s no chance of taking this one back to the shop next day.