by Miranda Hart
Miranda goes to the kitchen. We see Penny crawl over to Miranda.
PENNY: (WHISPERING) Use the nice tumblers.
DANNY: What?
MIRANDA: Use the nice tumblers… I said to myself…
(MOUTHS TO PENNY) get out…
Returns with a glass.
There you go.
DANNY: Thanks…
They sit down. He downs his drink.
I’m glad you came out tonight…
MIRANDA: Yes me too.
He turns to put his drink down/perhaps look at a photo or something.
Penny starts styling Miranda’s hair.
Miranda bats her away. Danny turns back.
Penny ducks and Miranda turns it into sexy hair tossing.
One doesn’t always feel in the mood to renounce… hence the unrenouncement clause. You know.
Miranda looks worried as she sees Penny filling up Danny’s glass behind him.
DANNY: Could I get another scotch…
MIRANDA: There you go…
He turns and sees it’s full.
DANNY: Wow. You seem to have everything under control. It’s very sexy.
Danny leans in for a kiss.
Suddenly we see Penny popping her head up from behind him, giving Miranda the thumbs up.
MIRANDA: (GETTING UP) Sorry, I’m gonna have to stop you there…
DANNY: Oh, that’s disappointing.
Gets up.
You’re quite something…
MIRANDA: So they say.
DANNY: Can I call you?
MIRANDA: Sure you’ve got my number. Ciao!
He goes. She shuts the door. Penny pops up.
MIRANDA: He is in my palm.
They both start moving excitedly.
INT. MIRANDA’S FLAT
Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ is on. To ‘Tumbled out of bed and a stumble to the kitchen’.
Miranda comes out of her room.
She pauses in the door frame and flicks her hair.
She has a skirt and a shirt on and a belt around her waist with trainers looking the businesswoman.
She bops/moves to the music whilst she takes a gulp of orange juice, grabs a cookie from the polka dot cookie jar, waters her plant, sees a pen on the table, puts it in her shirt pocket.
We also see a bowl of fruit. She grabs a handbag, and heads out…
EXT. STREET
She walks along, passing the other posh girls from earlier in skirts and trainers. They nod to her.
INT. RESTAURANT
The montage continues.
Miranda walks in, sits elegantly on a stool.
Clive is doing a crossword…
CLIVE: To mock or belittle, nine letters.
MIRANDA: Disparage.
He is looking for a pen. She hands him one.
CLIVE: Who are you?
Danny appears.
DANNY: Hey, last night was great…
Miranda realises she has achieved her aim. She looks excitedly to camera.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) I did it.
We reveal Tilly and Stinky having breakfast, staring at her, amazed.
MIRANDA: Not so much a dweeb now.
DANNY: Although there is one thing that was missing…
He kisses her and… Gary walks in.
GIRLS: Gary!
GARY: Hi.
Miranda turns to see him. She looks shocked.
Then falls off her stool. Grabs for a table, manages only to pull the table cloth off, sends food everywhere.
MIRANDA: Hello.
INT. SHOP
Miranda is in a state, pacing. Stevie and Clive are following her closely around.
MIRANDA: Gary sent the postcard after he got there but it only just arrived.
She stops, Stevie and Clive bang in to her.
STEVIE/CLIVE: Sorry.
MIRANDA: And now feel a bit teary actually because I’ve been thinking about him for months you know, why is he suddenly back?
They all give her a hug.
CLIVE: I think he said he got the sack.
MIRANDA: Really?
STEVIE: We need to find out his situation.
MIRANDA: Yeah but what do I do about…
Danny, Gary come in.
DANNY: Listen, I’ve been let go. Gary’s contract’s still open.
STEVIE/CLIVE: Gary’s got his job back.
GARY: But if I’m staying then, I don’t want this to be awkward…
MIRANDA: Awkward? This? Awkward.
Struggling to stand naturally.
MIRANDA: Who’s awkward? Funny word awkward. Something awkward about the word awkward. (SUDDENLY) Clutch. No sorry I’m cas…
Stands to demonstrate.
STEVIE: (QUICKLY, HUSHED) You’re acting weird. Look, ask if Gary’s got a girlfriend.
MIRANDA: Gary, so what does your girlfriend think of you leaving Hong Kong?
GARY: I don’t have a girlfriend…
STEVIE/CLIVE: Doesn’t have a girlfriend.
DANNY: So, Gary was telling me about this job in Birmingham. I might check it out if that’s cool…
MIRANDA: (TO DANNY) Of course… I mean this… this was only…
STEVIE: (REALLY QUICKLY SO MIRANDA MIGHT HARDLY HEAR)
Ask if Gary’s considered the job in Birmingham?
MIRANDA: Have you considered the joggers, that you might burn in them?
STEVIE/CLIVE: Backfired. Backfired.
DANNY: I better go, I’ve got a hunch that I might have got in the middle of something here…
MIRANDA/GARY: (PASSING IT OFF) What? Us? No, no we’re just friends… nothing here, he/I just got back from Hong Kong.
Stevie and Clive look at each other. It’s obvious there is something.
DANNY: Right, goodbye.
He kisses her and goes.
GARY: So, things have changed a bit.
MIRANDA: Yep it’s just the new me.
Stevie/Clive give her the thumbs up.
Then Penny comes downstairs.
PENNY: Miranda, I think that goat ate your bunion insole. (HOLDS IT UP)
The sushi owner and a policeman come in.
POLICEMAN: Excuse me, we need to talk about the damage to this man’s restaurant.
RYAN: (RUSHING IN) That’s her.
SANDY: I’m Sandy, stop impersonating me or I’ll report you.
DELIVERY GUY: (COMING IN) Kids ball pool for Miranda?
MIRANDA: Welcome back.
GARY: I think I preferred the old you anyway. Come here.
They hug.
STEVIE: Ball pool?
MIRANDA: Yes, follow me.
They all go upstairs.
Dolly Parton’s 9-5’ plays.
INT. MIRANDA’S BEDROOM
We reveal Miranda’s new bed – it’s the bunk with a slide.
The cast all slide down in to the ball pool one by one. (N.B. If that takes too long, everyone could be in and on different part of the bed for the reveal and their waves.)
You have been watching
Miranda Hart
Sarah Hadland
Patricia Hodge
James Holmes
Tom Ellis
Michael Landes. Waves as he heads out of the restaurant.
Sally Phillipps and Belinda Stewart-Wilson in the restaurant, Belinda waves and follows Danny out.
We cut back to the cast dancing in the bedroom/ball pool.
Series Two, Episode One
Behind the Scenes Tit-Bits
One of my favourite scenes out of all the series to rehearse, and then perform on the night of recording, was when the replacement chef comes in and the girls sing ‘You’re The One That I Want’ from Grease and then I do a fart and blame it on an imaginary dog. We all got the giggles the first time we read it but I think possibly I was the only one still laughing on day three of rehearsals. On the night the fart got such a huge laugh – we genuinely think the audience thought I had actually farted.
We auditioned a variety of 15 fart s
ounds. Fact.
I really hurt my knee doing the sushi belt stunt. I basically had to actually do it for real as the necklace had to be stuck down to make it look realistic. And clambering on to a high sushi belt wasn’t easy time and time again.
The goat did a massive and very loud wee before, during and after every take of that scene.
Sarah Hadland became obsessed with the goat. It was her favourite co-star. Rude. Second favourite the Chihuahua in Series One, Episode Six.
I now regularly get sent fruit friends. I had no idea one silly joke at the beginning of this episode would become a thing.
In rehearsals I kept forgetting the long speech I had about turning into the New Me so Sarah put lots of sticky notes on the counter of the joke shop with things like ‘pear’ and ‘mobile phone’ on them in case I forgot on the night in front of the audience. She was pretending to write out price tags for shop items but she was actually writing down prompts.
Tom Ellis was really nervous about coming back in at the end of this episode in case the audience didn’t react and wanted the new chef to stay instead of Gary returning. Bless him!
I have been loathe to talk about the falls and stunts in the show because I get defensive that actually they make up entirely about five minutes of the nine hours of material I have written. However, I am pleased that people warmed to the physical side of the show and I am proud about how we executed some of them. My three favourites are…
This wasn’t a stunt as such, but a big physical set piece that needed to work in one smooth movement so it took (unfortunately – I am not a massive fan of running up and down a London street in just bra and pants, call me old fashioned) quite a few takes to get it right. Sometimes the dress wouldn’t rip fully off. Sometimes the taxi sped away too quickly. There were a lot of things that could go wrong in the timing. And it is all done in one shot. Usually I knew it hadn’t quite worked and wouldn’t run too far after the taxi, but the shot we used, I knew it felt right so kept on running. I couldn’t hear anyone shout cut so carried on for quite a way, before turning around and seeing the entire crew laughing.
I know comedically other people have fallen in a grave before, but I don’t think anyone else has done it having just said “I was mortified, I wish the ground could swallow me up”. That got me really excited and I knew I had to do it. Even though it involved our props guys actually digging a grave in a grave site. It felt a bit morbid for a piece of clowning. On the day I got nervous for the first time before a stunt. Usually I just fall to the ground. And I can do that even just on carpet in front of the live audience. But suddenly I was falling in to a hole, so I was falling four or five feet below ground level to ensure clearing it so you never saw a foot or my back or anything. It was a little intimidating. The grave was padded out with crash mats but still it was a long way to fall. We did it twice and although it was quite funny, on watching it back I knew I had to just keep looking ahead. I used to turn to Penny when I said the line – a natural instinct but also I think because then I could take a sneak peek at where I was going to fall. But I had to do it a third time. I just wanted to look ahead and trust. I knew it would be funnier. Everyone was a little nervous for me doing it again, but I was certain. And that was the take that you’ll see. I am glad I only had to do it three times.
I liked this one because it had the biggest context and justification for a piece of physical comedy. Miranda was really trying to impress her boyfriend, she was feeling confident and happy in herself and then it wasn’t her fault, it was just bad luck that the gate started falling backwards. And then I liked the fact that for once after a fall, the person didn’t notice. She pulled off the elegant girlfriend. So for that context this may nudge to number 1. But comedically I would say the grave was my number 1. Although much harder to do, the gate was actually fun. I was happy to do it the four or five times I had to. I fell on to two large crash mats on my back and didn’t feel too concerned about sustaining an injury. And it was a beautiful sunny day in Gunnesbury Park, West London. The only thing I was nervous about was the two fabulous prop guys who had control of the gate on a large bit of rope – we had to work out how fast they pulled the gate back and I was worried that they might once really yank it so that I fell properly. Just for their own amusement!
Series Two, Episode Four
A New Low
· · ·
I slightly made a rod for my own back with this episode as I chucked so many different strands at it. I think it was one of the first episodes I wrote for Series Two, I will think of the general arc for the series as regards Miranda and Gary but other than that it’s an episodic series so I don’t necessarily write them in order. So, I had the ‘audience member hovering over the remote control’ image as more of a threat than ever on this one as it was the first I wrote for the tricky second album. Plus, the difficulty of a studio audience sitcom is that, well beyond simply treating you as if you are total idiots, you have to make the audience laugh. You need gags, you need big laughs. So any emotional stories, any pathos, anything with nuance like the Miranda and Gary through line has to be punctuated with laughter and kept light. It would be much easier to just focus on the drama of their relationship.
So having come up with the Miranda and Gary storyline for this episode I was worried it was a bit too dramatic or ‘soapy’. In fact, discovering Gary had been married before really did feel like a soap story. But we knew we needed something as big as that because the audience had to believe why Miranda would step away from him. Otherwise people might be shouting at their TV screens, ‘Oh just get together for heaven’s sake’. And I never wanted that. There has to be a very good reason to keep them apart. So with this ‘soap’ I needed a big comedy storyline to go alongside it.
I had always wanted to do a story about keeping up with a 22-year-old. It felt like an identifiable theme to most people over the age of, well, 23. Certainly anyone over 35, when clubbing starts to become a thing of a past and slippers and early nights a highlight. So when the 22-year-old being married to Gary idea came together, then we had a sitcom story. We could hang the Gary and Miranda thread on this comic concept, which became more of a comedic story when I made it a competition between Miranda and Stevie. First against each other and then together against the 22-year-old.
But with the image of the viewer with their remote control still looming, that didn’t seem enough to me. I had to make it really hard for myself and add in a story about Miranda not coping with nudity. That then justified the set piece of a life drawing class, and the hideousness of a communal swimming pool changing room, plus it tied in with Miranda and Gary getting together. But I decided that still wasn’t enough. I wanted to add in more of a character trait for Gary and brought in the alpha male builder that he tried to compete with. So there were now four to five stories in the one episode. I could have perhaps taken two of these and given them more time to breathe and got two shows out of the ideas, however I wanted to pack each episode with as much as possible. Even though it became incredibly difficult to piece together and tighten down to the best bits of each scene. But I am pleased with how it turned out. It’s very busy and fast, but I think it’s clear. And if you like my comedy shizzle, I think I can be brave in saying that I don’t think you’d press the remote on this episode.
INT. MIRANDA’S SITTING ROOM (MORNING)
Miranda on her sofa.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) Well hello to you. Now come on settle down, you coming in with your cup of tea, you’re late. I mean obviously I can’t see you but if you were coming in with a cup of tea then, spooky slash exciting moment. So, previously in my life, it became obvious why I have an element of the prude about me.
INT. PENNY’S SITTING ROOM (FLASHBACK. NIGHT)
Miranda walks into the sitting room.
MIRANDA: Mum? Dad? Listen I was wondering if I could borrow…
She opens a door to look for them and screams.
Urh, urh, oh my eyes…
PENNY:(OOV) Sor
ry darling, Tuesday nights are now naughty knitting night. Such fun.
MIRANDA: Not fun.
INT. MIRANDA’S SITING ROOM (MORNING)
Back to present
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) What else? Oh yes, I’ve got a new friend. Tamara – she’s waitressing at the restaurant. She’s only twenty-two – but I keep up pretty well… oh yeah.
Cut to:
EXT. PARK (FLASHBACK)
Miranda and Tamara are having a picnic.
MIRANDA: Oh Tamara, I think you’ve put a sausage roll in the scotch egg tub. Doesn’t matter. Go with the flow.
TAMARA: Hey, let’s roll down here. (POINTING TO A HILL)
MIRANDA: Right OK, crazy. The mind of the youth.
Tamara rolls down.
Miranda rolls.
I don’t like it, I don’t. Why would you do that?
INT. MIRANDA’S SITTING ROOM
Back to present.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) And Gary and I haven’t talked since he said we should have (MOUTHED) sex. I’m not bothered because I have a very fulfilling and exciting home life. Last night was crazy…
INT. MIRANDA’S BATHROOM (FLASHBACK)
Miranda gets the shower hose, lays it in the bath. Gets herself ready and excited.
Switches the tap on.
The shower hose goes crazy in the bath, like they do, spraying water everywhere.
Miranda is screaming with excitement.
INT. MIRANDA’S FLAT
Back to present.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) See. Good times. Right, let’s jolly on with the show.
TITLE SEQUENCE
INT. SHOP
Miranda comes downstairs. Stevie is cowering behind the till.
MIRANDA: What are you doing?
Stevie points to other end of the shop.
MIRANDA: Youths.
We see some teenagers looking at products/laughing.
She hides behind the till with Stevie. They whisper.
