Miranda Hart

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this Christmas is Miranda Hart. She writes and stars in the hit sitcom Miranda and has congered her way to the top of T V comedy by exploiting that universal truth that awkwardness lies at the heart of the human condition. Slapstick and misunderstanding underpin her work, along with the impression that she's just a really jolly lovely gal. Given that her father was a naval commander and her mother has devoted much of her life to tending a glorious garden in Hampshire, that would seem about right.

Presenter1:03

However, making her mark has been something of a slog. After her first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe it would be another eleven years before she could chuck in her job as an office

Presenter1:13

For a good while she was photocopying the scripts for comic relief rather than performing them.

Presenter1:18

She says I started writing comedy because it was more fun inside my head than the real world, but that's no longer true. Merry Christmas and welcome, Miranda Hart. You are a real lover of Christmas the mulled wine, the mince pies, the roaring fires, the carols. I have to say I hope you appreciate we've gone to some effort to day on our desert island for you.

Miranda Hart1:28

And you

Miranda Hart1:37

Yeah, I like the tree and the fact that you were wearing antlers. I will in fact put them on now.

Presenter1:40

I will in fact put them on now, my felt antlers.

Miranda Hart1:44

I'm worrying

Presenter1:44

Belief at

Miranda Hart1:45

Yeah.

Presenter1:45

Yeah.

Miranda Hart1:45

Yeah.

Presenter1:45

Yeah.

Miranda Hart1:45

Then

Presenter1:45

Yes, I'm not worrying them. I'm quite attached to them now.

Miranda Hart1:46

So what did you do?

Presenter1:48

Um, in the build-up to this programme, I found this um Edinburgh Fringe flyer for your 2005 show, and it reads Miranda doesn't fit in, exclamation mark. She was born into an upper-class background, she is six foot one and finds it hard to feel feminine. You're almost daring us to confuse you with the character of Miranda. What are the important differences?

Miranda Hart2:09

I think she's my clown. So she's my on stage licence to be silly and enjoy life and admit where life is awkward. And the real me is an introvert.

Presenter2:21

Really?

Miranda Hart2:27

Yeah, I think uh if not hilarious and certainly warm and loving, that sort of sitcom kind of kind character. I think they think she's their best friend, which is lovely and what I wanted to do with the character. But I never expected the sitcom to be a success, so I didn't expect that I would have to deal with the fact that I've got that expectation to meet.

Presenter2:46

You'll be with your family at Christmastime then? Yes. Do your mum and dad put on a good Christmas?

Miranda Hart2:48

Yeah.

Miranda Hart2:50

Yeah, great Christmas. We all love Christmas. We still do stockings. We open our stockings in front of the fire with breakfast. Do you have the same stocking that you had when you were in the middle? The same stocking. Yes, what was it like?

Presenter2:56

If you have

Presenter2:57

Same stocking.

Miranda Hart3:00

It's actually an actual long hunting sock from my grandfather.

Presenter3:06

Is there always a tangerine in the end?

Miranda Hart3:08

A tangerine and a walnut. Just the one. Just the one. I take on the role of entertainment officer.

Presenter3:10

Just the one

Miranda Hart3:14

In terms of there will always be something ridiculous I'll buy, like a nine-foot inflatable Santa, which in the sitcom I would pass off as the mother character, but actually in real life that's me.

Presenter3:25

Uh

Miranda Hart3:25

And what about Christmas?

Presenter3:25

Has lunch, are you in the kitchen with mum and dad?

Miranda Hart3:27

I'm on potatoes and bread sauce. I'm on carbs, basically.

Miranda Hart3:33

What's your secret for a good bread sauce, Miranda? Bread sauce, it's all about seeping the milk for as long as possible in the cloves and the onion.

Presenter3:40

And then

Miranda Hart3:41

And then removing the onion. Some people keep a bit of onion within the bread sauce. Unacceptable to me. Yes. Totally unacceptable.

Presenter3:45

Um

Presenter3:47

Yeah, totally unacceptable. I'm glad we've cleared that one up and all the big questions answered here on Desert Islanders. We're going to go to your music then. Tell us about the first one we're going to hear this morning and why you've chosen it.

Miranda Hart3:49

Yeah.

Miranda Hart3:50

You know what desert island is.

Miranda Hart3:56

Well the first one you will have heard a lot but it is my favourite song in the whole world. It is Morcombe on Wise Bring Me Sunshine and I love it because Eric Morcombe put simply is my hero and if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have launched into getting into comedy and this song just makes me so happy every time I hear it so I'll need it on my desert island.

Speaker 34:18

Bring me sunshine.

Speaker 34:21

Ain't yo smile.

Speaker 34:24

Bring me laughter.

Speaker 34:27

All the while.

Speaker 34:30

In this world where we live, there should be more happiness, so much joy you can give To each brand new bright tomorrow, make me happy.

Speaker 34:45

Through the years.

Presenter4:48

Hey! Oh, yes. I was singing along. That, of course, was Morcom and Wise and Bring Me Sunshine. You you said that Eric Morkham particularly has been your inspiration. What is it about him that just for you defines brilliant comedy?

Miranda Hart5:00

I don't have a very good memory and but I do specifically remember him turning to camera and just smiling at me when I was watching him on the television and then just thinking, wow and he gave me the licence to be silly and think grown ups can do that.

Presenter5:15

And that, of course, is a technique that you employ to such effect in Miranda, where you turn and you address camera, and actually your primary relationship.

Miranda Hart5:19

Would you turn

Miranda Hart5:23

It was with the viewer. I wanted to connect with the audience in that way and go, You're getting to know this character and all that she feels about everything about life. But also I just instinctively felt which sounds arrogant, but it just was sort of in me. I just felt I know I can make

Presenter5:36

Ain't that funny? You did a Miranda Christmas special last year that I think netted ten million viewers. I mean, these days in Telly that is doing very well. You said a moment ago you never thought it would be a hit. When you got the viewing figures in for that Miranda, did you allow yourself a moment of self-congratulation?

Miranda Hart5:53

Not then, because it was episode one of the series, so I thought that it might drop to five million next week. So I couldn't go then because you were just thinking, Yeah, but what next? Will they s stay watching it? Did they really like it? Was that just Christmas? I mean, classic performer anxiety. But I think more recently when I watched an episode back of series two that was being repeated, I finally did the sit back and go.

Miranda Hart6:15

Wow, I did it, and I had that little pat on my back moment.

Presenter6:18

What about the writing then? How do you deal with the blank page? And how do you deal with tight deadlines? You know, there are people sitting waiting on seeing a Miranda script.

Miranda Hart6:26

It's hard, but I'll spend the first couple of months wandering around thinking of ideas, literally looking at shops, going, What shop could she go into that would be funny? and then driving past a sushi restaurant one day and going, Oh ah sushi Okay, that's a set piece.

Presenter6:39

So we haven't enjoyed then a Christmas edition of Miranda this year, but we are seeing you in Call the Midwife. You play that lovely upper middle class girl, Chummie. Did it feel like a risk, I wonder, to take on that role, a very serious acting role, having come out of something that you knew that people liked you in, which was being a funny person in a sitcom?

Presenter6:58

It didn't

Miranda Hart6:59

didn't feel like a risk. It felt like just the most wonderful opportunity. And the minute I read Chummie on the page, Jennifer Wirth, who wrote the Cool and Midwife book, sent me a copy of it and said, You remind me of my friend Chummie. I'd love you to play her. So I read it and I thought, I have to play this character. And it wasn't too much of a a leap

Miranda Hart7:16

Miranda sitcom Miranda

Miranda Hart7:18

Is Tommy now?

Presenter7:19

Yes, that's what I keep thinking, and whenever I have been thinking about you and the parts you play and the things you write, it is this abiding sense of the innocent in the middle of it all.

Miranda Hart7:29

Yeah, and also admitting and showing vulnerability. If someone says, How are you? and you go, Oh, I've had an awful day the relief on people's faces because we're all keeping up a pretence. So the minute you get a character like Chummie that shows her vulnerability, everyone identifies and then wants her to win. Chummie also does make us smile.

Presenter7:47

I mean, often it's just with the things she's wearing. She doesn't really suit fifties fashion, does she? Particularly her wedding outfit, I thought, was a triumph.

Miranda Hart7:56

No, it was brilliant, wasn't it? It was some sort of horrible two piece that looked like seventies furniture but fifties clothing.

Presenter8:06

Let's have another piece of uh music, Miranda. Tell me about your second disc.

Miranda Hart8:10

Well, Chummy would love to dance along to this with gay abandon, but only in private, which is where I only dance along to it. When I'm having a writing blank, I will put this song on and dance about in my kitchen. And it gets the Creative Jesus flowing. It is, of course, Dolly Parton's Nine to Five.

Speaker 48:30

In the same boat with a lot of your friends Waiting for the day your ship'll come in And the tide's gonna turn and it's all gonna row you away

Speaker 48:40

Working out to find what a way to make a given Heading, getting by. It's all taking and no giving. They just use your mind.

Miranda Hart8:50

You drummed.

Speaker 48:52

You never get the credit. It's enough to drive you crazy in your life.

Miranda Hart8:59

Uh

Presenter8:59

Ah to the

Speaker 49:00

Yeah.

Miranda Hart9:01

Uh

Presenter9:01

Sorry, I'm keeping going. No, you keep going. That was Dolly Parton and 9 to 5. So, Miranda Catherine Hart Dyke emerges into the world in 1972. She's the first of two daughters, born to David and Diana. You were brought up in Hampshire. Tell me a little bit of. Well, I'm interested in your mother, particularly at this point. Yes, I saw a photograph of you peeking out from behind her skirt. I think you were about ten. Your mother, a very sort of.

Presenter9:25

A handsome woman, I would say, and somebody with presence. What sort of mother is she?

Miranda Hart9:30

Delighted to hear that. She's a very beautiful lady, my mother. She is a.

Miranda Hart9:35

Oh, very loving mother, uh very fun. I think I get some of my eccentricity from her. I remember her telling me some sort of practical joke she used to play on friends when she was at school and I thought, Oh, that's where I get it from. I don't know, my mum plays the piano, so there was lots of sort of singing along. She would play I remember her playing Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage quite a lot and all the singers of that. Very creative. She introduced me to theatre, really. We would go and see comedies mainly, Noel Coward or a lot of Ray Cooney farces.

Presenter10:04

And your sister came along when you were how old? Nearly three.

Miranda Hart10:08

Right.

Presenter10:08

Uh

Miranda Hart10:08

And we

Presenter10:08

Were you chums?

Miranda Hart10:09

Were you happy but

Presenter10:09

That?

Miranda Hart10:10

I don't remember at that age, but yeah, we're best friends now, and have been for many years, I think.

Miranda Hart10:16

Two teenagers in a household is It's angsty times, Kirsty is.

Miranda Hart10:21

I think I I think there were moments of jealousy, definitely, of my sister. She was very pretty. Things seemingly went according to plan. She got the boys. She could sing at school. She got all the parts. Life seemed easy and good for my sister, but that's what I thought. So I think there was some jealousy going on. But now we're firm friends.

Presenter10:39

And would you do little shows together? Were you those sort of sisters?

Miranda Hart10:42

Yes, then in the holidays, away from school, it was all very swallows and amazons, lots of bike rides and picnics, and then me making her put on plays.

Presenter10:50

Was your mother the sort of mother who would not let you sit down and watch Why Don't You? Was she sort of rustling you off the sofa and sit down?

Miranda Hart10:55

Yeah, she was always like, go for a walk, which I'm now so grateful for, but until she was like,

Presenter10:59

Can I not watch Mortelli? No, get out. And she comes from a rather splendid sounding family. Your maternal grandfather was Sir William Luce, who was Governor of Aden, and your uncle, Uncle Richard, was Baron Luce, who was a Tory MP and a minister under Margaret Thatcher. Later, he was Lord Chamberlain to the royal household. That all sounds quite grand. Was it quite a sort of grand upbringing?

Miranda Hart11:19

No, not at all. That does sound finally grant to me, and they're my family.

Miranda Hart11:24

But no, I suppose that was their world and just not mine at all. We, you know, brought up in Petersfield and walked to s the local school and it was a very simple sort of middle class upbringing.

Presenter11:35

And your grandmother was she sounds intriguing, I have to say she was called Margaret Luce. Yes. And she was a a published diarist, but also a playwright. What did you know about her as you were growing up?

Miranda Hart11:46

Not much? No, not much, but uh

Miranda Hart11:49

I remember just being sort of fascinated by her thing. I can't believe she's had plays published, because I didn't know necessarily wanted to be a writer then, but I knew I had this love of theatre. And there's a book of seven one-act plays, of which one of hers is chosen alongside a J.M. Barry play and an old coward play. And I just would look at the cover and go, I can't believe it. Yeah, I sort of feel like I'm doing my career for her, actually. Do you? Yeah, because she couldn't really follow it. Her husband then went to live abroad and work abroad, and she followed that life. Let's have some more music, Miranda Hart. Tell me about your third piece of music. Right, well, this is quite a strange choice when I thought of it. I thought, I'm going to have an old school hymn, because I've decided when I'm on my desert island, I'm going to have a structure to my day. So I'm going to wake up every day and sing my school hymn.

Miranda Hart12:37

And it'll remind me of the best days of my life, and also get me because I always like to say, Kirsty, relax within a structure. Do you? Yes, even on holiday. There has to be a structure. So it is my old school hymn, which is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.

Speaker 413:08

There's a lot of

Speaker 413:11

Oh my son is my

Speaker 413:17

Give him the rough space.

Speaker 413:24

Maybe of heartless grave.

Presenter13:34

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, sung by the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, with Christopher Dearney on the organ, and conducted by John Scott, relax within a structure. We've decided that should be your motto for life. You said a moment ago, um, School days were the best days of my life. Tell me a little about your school days then. Why did you like it so much?

Miranda Hart13:51

Well, I think it was part of Relax Within the Structure. You had to get up at this time, you had to go to your lessons, you had to do I I liked that structure. A boarding school life means that your friends are on tap, so you've got a ready made social life. I love sport, and sport was on tap.

Presenter14:06

And you were by nature a nervy and shy child.

Miranda Hart14:10

Yes.

Presenter14:11

What did what did you do

Miranda Hart14:13

I think I worried mainly about dying.

Miranda Hart14:18

Yes, I remember always being very anxious about health. Things like the chemistry lesson at school, I remember they were saying that you had to

Miranda Hart14:24

put something in a test tube and then the fumes will come out. I had to run out'cause I thought, well, the fumes will get into my lungs and the lungs will cause some disease. And my imagination was so vivid that anything that could be considered vaguely anxious, my imagination would take me to the extreme and I would sort of believe it. But I was quite a sickly not in a serious way, child, but I was always, always getting ill. So I think I hated illness'cause it removed me from the fun of life.

Presenter14:48

And speaking of the fun of life, you were a now, the word prankster, it's not one I use often, but you you were a prankster at school.

Miranda Hart14:55

Yeah, I was. We do I mean really quite extreme eccentric things. For example, in the dormitories you had your own bed and then a little chest of drawers where you'd have your photo albums and things like that, and then on your bed your slippers and your own duvet cover and everything like that. And one lunch time, me and a couple of friends, we'd move a whole section of someone's dorm, so their bed and their dressing table and all their personal effects, say onto the tennis court or something, so that now after lunch everyone would go to the tennis lesson and somebody would go, Oh, my bed and my photos of my parents are on the tennis court And then it got extreme and at some point somebody's bed was in the sanatorium and then mine they put on the worst one was on the stage of the hall where the debating society was happening when a boys' school had come round. So just before the teachers came in I had to go on stage in front of four hundred boys aged fourteen and remove my teddy bear and my slippers that were one of those big lions sort of feet and sort of throw them out of the hall window. So it's sort of really quite extreme pranks.

Presenter16:00

Yeah.

Presenter16:01

Right, tell me about your next piece of music then. We're going to hear your uh your fourth this morning, Miranda. Wha what is it and why have you chosen this?

Miranda Hart16:08

This is a Mozart piano concerto, and I love it, but also it's music that my father listened to when he was in the Falklands, and he would go to his cabin and put it on and have a moment of stillness amongst his very, very stressful situation when he was at war. And if it helps him at war, it'll help me on my desert island keep calm.

Presenter17:32

That was the Andante from Mozart's Piano Concerto, No. 21 in C major, played there by the London Mozart players, conducted by Howard Shelley. I want to ask you then, Miranda Hart, a little bit more about your father. You mentioned there that he was involved in the Falklands conflict. He was indeed commander of a naval destroyer, and he was taking part in that conflict when you were just ten years old. His ship was sunk under enemy fire. What do you remember about what was happening at the time in your family? What did your mother tell you?

Miranda Hart18:00

Well, my mother was extraordinary in that she knew that this ship had gone down, I think, in the middle of the night, and she kept it from us because I think she didn't want to tell us that until she found out whether he was dead or alive. So me and my sister went to school and people kept coming up to us and saying, Are you all right? Is everything all right? you know, I said, I'm fine, I've got a bit of a cold, but I'm fine. I must have seen the most selfish little child. So I was very sheltered from it. I remember getting back from school and there were lots of people outside the house which would have been pressed. We had to go via the the neighbours and climb over their garden fence to get in to the back of home. So I sort of remember that, but it didn't really have that much of an effect on me. As you've grown up, has your father spoken to you about what he went through? Well he didn't speak at all when he got back, but he put everything on tape. And then when I was in my early twenties he allowed me to type them all up, which was amazing and quite emotional listening to his voice going through it so close to the event because he was absolutely convinced he was going to die. And then he just heard a voice saying go to your left and he thought rationally that makes no sense because the ladder isn't to the left but the ship went down in fifteen minutes so

Miranda Hart19:11

It was at such a strange angle at that point that actually it did make sense for him to go left, and he got out, and he was so lucky to get out alive.

Presenter19:19

A little more about your time at school then. It was an all girls' school. Is it actually true that during one school disco and I don't know if it was an all girl disco or the boys from the local school were allowed to come?

Presenter19:29

That you ran to the loo and ate your shoulder pads.

Miranda Hart19:34

Well, there was all I was so uncool at at school. I never had the right clothes and people had the shoulder pads, so I remember putting bread rolls under my bra straps in an attempt to go, Look, padded shoulders, right jacket Yes, no doubt I would have eaten them, because if there's bread about then

Miranda Hart19:51

Crack on, have a carb. And what happened then when you went to college and you you started dating boys? Yes, university was a bit of a shock because my school holidays were quite sort of innocent as well. I mean, my life experience really didn't start until much later than most people's. I just didn't have enough male friends when I was growing up. I I didn't know how to interact with them, and suddenly you had to laugh at their jokes and be sort of girlish. But I was like, But I don't want to laugh at their jokes. Can I not be as funny as them? And I found it all deeply confusing. What age were you when you reached the height of six foot? One

Miranda Hart20:26

Sixteen, seventeen? At school, I didn't think anything of it. It was just useful. Suddenly at university you don't feel like the girl that you suddenly feel you have to be. And so I began to feel awkward about it and not feminine.

Presenter20:42

Yes, I think you're very, very harsh on yourself about that. I I I read y you wrote somewhere that your face looks like a jellied horse. Now that is hilariously funny. But when you're saying it about yourself, it's also incredibly harsh.

Miranda Hart20:52

But when you

Miranda Hart20:55

Yeah, well I'm sort of saying it about the character rather myself. I know I look like my sitcom character, but I sort of remove myself from that. But no, it probably is scarring on some level. But by being the lad and being friends with the guys, I can make the jokes about myself that I presume they're all thinking. So I think they're all thinking you look like a jellied horse. So

Presenter21:17

I'll say that first. And you had an intriguing mixture there of the past tense and the present tense. You were talking sometimes about university and then suddenly you were talking actually about the here and now.

Miranda Hart21:25

Oh, that's why you're good at your job, was I? I believe you were, Miss Marina. Interesting. Yeah, I suppose I st I still do. There's elements of me that still does feel that sort of outsider in the world of femininity.

Presenter21:29

Leave you a surrounding

Miranda Hart21:38

But slowly beginning to go right on board of this now. Come on, we're we're all beautifully unique.

Miranda Hart21:44

Let's have some music, Miranda Hart. We're on your uh fifth of the day. What are we going to hear? We're going to hear Simon and Garfunkel's Homeward Bound because this really reminds me of school days and holidays at home dancing around the kitchen with my mum and sister.

Speaker 422:00

On a tour of one night stands My suitcase and guitar in hand, And every stop is neatly planned For a poet and a one-man band

Speaker 422:12

Over.

Speaker 422:15

I wish I was

Speaker 422:21

Home, where my thoughts are scaping home, where my music's playing home, where my love lies waiting silent.

Presenter22:33

That was Simon Garfunkel and Homeward Bound. You went home from university then and I've read and it's so easy for too much to be made of these things in in headlines and so on. So I want to kind of clarify it, if you will, Miranda. You suffered a a sort of crisis of sorts. You came home and life didn't quite seem to be shaking down the way you wanted it. Is that fair?

Miranda Hart22:54

Yeah, after university I was out of my structure you see, I was out of

Miranda Hart22:58

education and that that threw me. I was like, well, what next? How does life work now? I wasn't someone who suited that blank page very well. But I was desperate to be on stage, I was desperate to be in television. I thought this was this glamorous, wonderful world where I could escape from life and

Miranda Hart23:15

And there was still that sense of sort of women having to pander to men, and could I really achieve that as a woman? There was all that going on.

Presenter23:21

As we know, minimum it takes about ten years of behind the scenes damned hard work to be an overnight success. When do you think your your breakthrough moment was? When did you think this has turned from something that I just want into something that I may well have? Yeah.

Miranda Hart23:36

Well, I think I was very lucky that although I first went to the Edinburgh Festival in'inin' four and it wasn't until 2005 that I gave up Office Temping, that every year I got some sort of affirmation to keep going. But I suppose I felt, gosh, I I am a jobbing actress now and I got the lead in a sitcom called Hyperdrive on Boobsy Two.

Presenter23:56

And I sci fi sitcom.

Miranda Hart23:57

Sci-fi sitcom with Nick Frost as the lead and I I saw a big picture of me and Nick Frost in the T V listings and I thought, oh, wow and that was a real moment.

Presenter24:06

In all of those ten, twelve, thirteen years when you were plugging away with a little bit here and a little bit there, what were your mum and dad, what were your sisters saying to you about your career?

Miranda Hart24:15

Well, they were very, very supportive and they came to all my gigs. But there was, as time went on, there was the flip side which was being a PA is a very noble and interesting job. And my mother would send me newspaper cuttings of, you know, creme de la creme in the Evening Standard with people talking about their jobs and saying sort of high powered PA jobs. Yeah, so you say, Look, you see, you can work for very interesting people, which actually worked great for me because it was red rag to bull. I was like, Right, I know. Sorry, I'm not going to do that, because I couldn't quite understand why she didn't want me to be the one with the PA.

Presenter24:34

Yeah.

Presenter24:49

When you were a PA in the Comic Relief Office and you were watching all these rather starry people come in and out for production meetings and strip meetings and all the things that people do, and you were probably sort of buying the sushi and clearing up the coffee cups, how did you handle it?

Miranda Hart25:03

Well, I worked in the grants department, but occasionally people you know, Lenny Henry or Richard Curtis would come in for a meeting, so there was an element of that. Yeah, I I orchestrated a really embarrassing moment with Richard, I told him recently, whereby we were playing football outside the offices for some reason and he was coming out and I said, Kick the ball towards me and I'll just deliberately bump into him And so he did and I bumped into him. Oh, hello, oh hi, my name's Miranda and I want to get into comedy with Hanbur. I would never do that now, but there's a sort of weird confidence in a way in your twenties, isn't there?

Presenter25:31

There was a sort of weird confidence in it.

Presenter25:33

Doesn't that? When you look back, I've looked at some of those, I think, the very sort of shakily filmed little clips of you when you were doing I imagine, Paul, it was some of your Edinburgh gigs.

Miranda Hart25:42

Yeah.

Presenter25:43

Lot of headscarves and glasses involved.

Miranda Hart25:45

Yeah, lots of hats. Now I'm doing a character please. Well when you look at those, what do you think?

Presenter25:47

Hmm.

Miranda Hart25:51

Yeah, I would send that person the crème de la grande prier section.

Miranda Hart25:56

No, it's very cringy, but also I kind of admire the perseverance actually, despite the deep lack of talent.

Miranda Hart26:04

It's time for some music, Miranda Hart. We're on your sixth. Tell me about this. Oh well this relates to my post-university years of desperately wanting to get into acting and Juliet Stevenson was someone that I still do admire deeply but then was obsessed with. I wanted to be her and truly madly deeply was a film that I loved with her and Alan Rickman and this Bach's adagio sonata number three was in it.

Presenter27:29

From Bach sonata number three in G minor that was the adagio, played by Pablo Casals and Paul Baumgarten was on piano.

Presenter27:36

I'm not sure where you found the time in twenty ten, but along with six other uh performers you managed to raise over a million pounds for sports relief by cycling a really gargantuan task. You went from John Agroats to Land's End.

Presenter27:48

It looked very dramatic, but of course, these things are edited for maximum impact. What was it really like when you were doing it?

Miranda Hart27:55

It wasn't the best of fun. I was pleased to do it for the charity. We raised a lot of money, which was fantastic, but it was a sort of relay, so you had two hours on the bike and then you were back on a tour bus, and the tour bus was almost more horrendous than cycling in the Scottish Islands at minus ten at one point, which I had to do. I di I didn't like it, Kirsty.

Miranda Hart28:15

You

Presenter28:15

Worked for a very long time doing your own thing, as we know, and now you have more success than probably you could ever have dreamed of.

Presenter28:23

I heard you talking to somebody who knew Eric Morecombe, and you were talking about him and his fame, and you said to this person who'd known him well, do you think he thought it was worth it?

Miranda Hart28:33

Yeah, I think I got to a point a year ago, possibly, when it was all a bit too much. It was quite lonely and I was struggling. And so I think that's when I did the documentary about Eric Morecombe. And I thought, is it worth it? Because you're not doing it for yourself, you're doing it for an audience. And are they out there laughing? And i is comedy a a noble, worthwhile career? So that was the key question I would have asked Eric and I hope he would have said yes, it's worth it.

Presenter29:02

Right. And that's the conclusion you've come up with.

Miranda Hart29:04

Yes, and then you find ways to manage your life that means you're not in that place, which I'm not now, and feel a lot happier and more confident and celebratory about what I've achieved and feel it's fine as a woman to be confident and pat myself on the back. I often get called misogynistic in the show, which I find really upsetting, because it is a celebration of women and how we are all different and unique and unusual and quirky and vulnerable. All those things.

Presenter29:28

I think that's why people like watching Miranda, the programme, because it allows somebody who is not a conformist to triumph and have fun and have a laugh and fancy the good looking guy and and and actually, if she wanted, get the good looking guy. She does, she gets the guys.

Miranda Hart29:37

And have a lot.

Miranda Hart29:42

Can you

Presenter29:44

The upside of fame, then, do you get the guys now? Do they throw themselves at you? Do you have notes in your dressing room, and so on?

Miranda Hart29:50

No, no, I don I don't. I think maybe it lessens that in a way, because funny women are possibly intimidating, maybe successful women are, I don't know. Only to the wrong

Presenter29:59

Wrong sort of man, Miranda.

Miranda Hart30:01

Yes, but I think as long as you think you're beautiful then you will come across as that and that's what I'm finally beginning to realise. Three cheers for that.

Presenter30:09

Let's have some music. We're on your seventh. Tell me about this.

Miranda Hart30:11

I love musicals, I love going to see them and I would desperately want to be in them if I could sing and dance.

Miranda Hart30:20

So I'm going to on my desert island, I'm going to learn a tap routine with coconut shoes to this easy street from Annie.

Speaker 430:27

The feet.

Speaker 430:33

That's where we're gonna That's where we're gonna That's where we're gonna

Presenter30:58

That was Easy Street from the musical Annie, sung there by Carol Burnett, Tim Currie, and Bernadette Peters. The lyrics are by Martin Charnin, and the music composed by Charles Strauss, and it was little more Miranda Hart than a naked bit of uh

Presenter31:11

Championing of the cause of getting yourself into the West End there. Can you ever see yourself hoofing in the West End?

Miranda Hart31:15

Yeah, I really didn't say it from that point of view. No, now I'm really mortified. No, I really can't see my I mean, in my head and in my kitchen I'm quite a serious musical theatre star, Kirsty. Um, outside of the front door, less good, more like a giraffe on ice.

Presenter31:31

How have your we've heard a bit about how you have managed to cope with your success and fashion a life that can be enjoyable and not just full of pressures. What about your parents? How have they coped with your success?

Miranda Hart31:41

They're very lovely, they're very proud and very supportive. And my mum has always said, you know, before I got into television, that I was the funniest person she knew, which is lovely, she said, and that still remains. And my mum in particular loves showbiz, you know, she loves meeting actors and we'd always go round to the stage door after shows together. And so she came to the Baptists with me once, got very excited about it, and Graham Norton. Oh, and she's fascinated by people and is not shy. So I didn't have to look after her, which was great. But then I did occasionally hear her going over to people going, Oh, now I must talk to you. You are marvellous.

Presenter32:16

Which I love. We did begin by talking about your love of of Christmas and New Year and the festivities that surround everything. Apart from this great long shooting sock that is your stocking for Father Christmas, what other rituals do you have to observe?

Miranda Hart32:22

That's a nice.

Miranda Hart32:27

Yeah.

Miranda Hart32:30

Well, there's the sing-along carol concert, obviously. Just a lot of eating. A lot of mints by a big fan of the brandy butter.

Miranda Hart32:37

It's very much a question of would you like a mince pie with your brandy butter with me. We have a family tradition of a game called This is a Spoon. I've still yet to know this is just my family. It's oh, it's so hard to describe

Presenter32:46

Discrete.

Miranda Hart32:50

And everyone will think I'm insane. However.

Miranda Hart32:55

All you do is say this is a spoon to the person next to you. They go, A what? you go a spoon. They pass it on to the next person and go, This is a spoon, a what, a spoon but then someone on the other side of the table introduces a fork and it gets faster and faster and faster and then you're introducing those objects and you're having to go a what a spoon, a knife, a fork, a what?

Presenter33:13

I think that might just be your family.

Miranda Hart33:15

You're right. Excellent.

Presenter33:17

I'm going to give that a couple of times.

Miranda Hart33:18

Anyone who's

Presenter33:19

Listen now. Play it. Right, it's time for your final piece of music then, Marana.

Miranda Hart33:23

And uh tell me about your eighth choice. Well, this reminds me of a heightened romantic time in my life, and it would also be the song that if I could sing We Play a Game Me, My Friends, if you could sing any song at the Albert Hall, what would it be? And this would be it.

Speaker 433:38

Say dardinate and kiss me.

Speaker 433:43

Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me While I'm alone and blue as can be Dream a little dream of me

Speaker 434:00

Stars fading, but I linger home.

Speaker 434:05

Uh

Presenter34:05

Still craving your kiss

Presenter34:09

That was Mamma Cass, and Dream a Little Dream of Me. We've come to the point then, Miranda, where I'm going to give you the books. You get the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get the Bible, and you get to take another book along. What are you going to take?

Miranda Hart34:20

Well, I would like to take the complete works, if I may, of my grandmother's, published and unpublished. She was an inspiration. She's why I keep going in my career. And also I think you'd want that link to home and family and a luxury.

Miranda Hart34:36

Now am I allowed the following?

Miranda Hart34:39

A tennis court, a tennis racquet, tennis balls Absolutely. Hooray Because I shall come back from my desert island a Wimbledon champion.

Miranda Hart34:50

Yeah.

Presenter34:50

Could actually have, if you want, Wimbledon's centre court. And so if it's really sunny, you could put the roof on and on. Could have centre court. Why not? Yes, please. In that case, it's yours.

Miranda Hart34:59

And one of the eight discs to save. It's going to have to be because it just brings me so much cheer, nostalgia and such a massive part of my life as the Morecambe and Wise Bring Me Sunshine.

Presenter35:13

It's yours, Miranda Hart. Merry Christmas, and thank you very much for letting us hear your desert hiding discs.

Miranda Hart35:17

Thank you. Merry Christmas to you.

Presenter36:00

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.