Miranda

Miranda Hart is a distinctly amiable and engaging comic whose funny bones are as prodigious as her height. Hart, a stand-up, made her way on to TV via the exemplary Smack the Pony, the execrable Hyperdrive and, latterly, the excellent Not Going Out, in which she channelled Count Duckula's Nanny - an oversized hen who is impossible to dislike. All of which has led to her own show, which at first felt rather twee, what with all her knowing glances to camera and the actors' waving over their names as the credits rolled à la Dad's Army. Really, who do you think you are kidding?

But, to Hart's credit, the series has picked up, and its latest outing, which saw her taking a holiday - to Thailand, she told her friends, but actually around the corner to a luxury retreat - had me in fits. Not for its originality of premise - taking on a self-improvement lecturer's persona and playing merry hell with it is not exactly mind-blowing - nor the farce (one of the friends she lied to turns up as an "escort" she mistakenly ordered) but perhaps because it is impossible not to warm to someone so at ease with their own inadequacies.

Promoting her show Big Top, Amanda Holden asked the salient question: "In this current climate who wants to watch a desperate family in their living room? They want escapism, colour and clowns - even if they're rubbish!" Well, Amanda, sorry to disappoint, but I'd rather spend the rest of this seemingly never-ending crunch watching Miranda Hart and her friends struggling to make something of their lives than another second of you sending in the buffoons.

Miranda Hart's sitcom is ridiculously silly, and that's just part of the reason why I like it so much. Tonight, the joke shop owner decides that, as a single woman, she is carefree enough to jet off on holiday at a moment's notice. But to avoid the hassle of long-distance travel, she books into a hotel across the road...

Miranda and the man from Skins

This week's episode is the directors (the fabulous Juliet May) favourite script. And I think the one I probably enjoyed doing the most. That could have been something to do with the dancing to Billy Joel.

One simple creative decision makes this infectious comedy sing: having Miranda Hart break the fourth wall and address us directly. Allowing her warmly manic alter ego to glance, mug and chat to camera makes us feel in on the joke. Few comedy performers have enough innate charm to carry such a performance off, but Hart does. Tonight, another unapologetically creaky story sees Miranda go on holiday to a hotel just round the corner.