Miranda Hart - Such Fun. Sophie Johnson
however, is a different story – Miranda has a legion of fans. There are numerous blogs dedicated to the comedian, where admirers post screenshots of their favourite moments in the show, funny clips, and fan videos of her character and Gary set to love songs.
Some are asking the question whether it has been too much too soon. Andrew Pettie, writing for the Telegraph, says she is ‘at the moment at which a steady groundswell of approval becomes a storm of praise, hype and media exposure’. But this adulation is largely down to her filling a gap in comedy with a finesse that appealed to a wide audience. Success did not come overnight. It took a decade of hard work and ploughing on regardless through rejections that got her to this point. She feels that this is just the start of her career, but has said she already feels tired with the amount of work and emotional strength it took her to get here. In the heat of the moment at the British Comedy Awards, she did pay tribute to those closest to her: ‘I’d just like to thank my friends and family, really, for supporting me in the 10 years while I was gigging and didn’t get a job basically and for persevering with me. Thank you very much.’
The 2011 BAFTA Television and Television Craft Awards did not provide Miranda with any further gongs, although the show earned three nominations. At the Television Awards on 8 May, Hart was in the running for Female Performance in a Comedy Programme (though Jo Brand would win the trophy thanks to her lead role in the hospital sitcom Getting On), while the programme itself was nominated in the YouTube-sponsored Audience Award, voted for by the public, a category won by the startlingly successful ITV2 series The Only Way is Essex. At the Television Craft Awards later in the month, Miranda director Juliet May was up against the directors of The X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and Coronation Street. Though May lost out to the Street’s Tony Prescott (for a special live episode of the serial), its association with three such well-established TV institutions underlined that, in a short space of time, Miranda had become appointment television.
Miranda Hart continues to be recognised for her talent and it appears that she is no flavour of the month, but a writer and performer with the ability to keep delivering. But where did this comedy star come from and what made her want to make people laugh for a living?
‘Being told “Don’t be silly” as a child really pissed me off, so I thought, OK, I’ll be silly for a living then.’
– Miranda
The comedy stork delivered Miranda Katharine Hart Dyke to her parents in Torquay on 14 December 1972. She was joined by her sister Alice Louisa in 1975. There is a ‘laughs as therapy’ school of thought that believes comedians have usually suffered a troubled childhood they are trying to cope with. In many ways, Miranda’s upbringing was a privileged one: her father was naval captain David Hart Dyke, commander of the HMS Coventry during the Falklands War, and her mother Diana Margaret Luce, daughter of Sir William Henry Tucker Luce (former British Governor and Commander in Chief of Aden). Speaking on Frank Skinner’s TV series Opinionated, Miranda seemed coy about her aristocratic heritage, commenting, ‘Well, I suppose strictly I’m from an upper-class background but I wouldn’t say I’m upper class. The family goes back to the 12th century and my aunt and uncle live in a castle, three rooms of which they can’t afford to run – that’s how posh I am!’
Miranda’s uncle, born Richard Luce, is in fact The Rt Hon. The Lord Luce KG GCVO PC DL – all those letters at the end marking him as a member of the Order of the Garter (a ‘Sir’), the Royal Victorian Order, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and Deputy Lieutenant of West Sussex. After working as a Conservative MP, Lord Luce served as Governor of Gibraltar and then Lord Chamberlain to Her Majesty The Queen until 2008. Most recently, in March 2011, he succeeded Douglas Hurd as High Steward of Westminster. So, not your average uncle then, but, as a former Minister for the Arts (1985–90), it must be quite a delight for him to see his niece Miranda flying the flag for female comics in the field.
The family moved to Petersfield, Hampshire, where Miranda spent the majority of her childhood, except when, like her comic counterpart, she was sent off to boarding school. But her comfortable upbringing suffered disruption at the age of nine when, in the spring of 1982, her father’s ship was sent out to protect the troops in the Falklands War. He was in command of the Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer HMS Coventry, one of three ships sent to ward off aircraft and protect the troops, 20 miles ahead of the fleet. He found it hard being away from his wife and daughters, the only contact being through letters, which arrived by helicopter and were quickly distributed around the ship. The men on board had to write swift replies in time for the second chopper that would take them away. Captain Hart Dyke sent sketches of the ship in action and received letters and drawings from his daughters in reply. He later recalled a particular drawing Miranda did of Coventry to give to his Petty Officer Steward. The man in question, Mick Stuart, was very touched by the gesture and pinned it up on the pantry wall.
His main consolation during this difficult time was that his wife and family weren’t the only ones in the area going through it. Miranda’s mother Diana – known affectionately as ‘D’ – played an important role supporting other families in Hampshire who had husbands or sons fighting in the Falklands. But David kept a stiff upper lip throughout the operation. As he wrote in his memoirs, Four Weeks in May, ‘The captain could not be seen by his sailors to be moping.’
But after one of their sister ships, Sheffield, sank, things were looking bleak for the brave father. His wife was understandably worried, doubled with the weight of other families looking to her for comfort, including the wife of Sam Salt, the ship’s captain. Meanwhile, his daughters had their mind on other things. Miranda wrote to him about her upcoming cycling proficiency test and some new shoes she had acquired, with only one brief sentence referring to the sinking of Sheffield, which she described as ‘very sad’.
Letters continued to be a source of reassurance for Captain Hart Dyke. He received one from his brother-in-law, Richard Luce, after he had been to visit D and the girls. He reassured the captain that they had overcome the shock of HMS Sheffield and were getting along well, and that he even played some duets with Miranda and her mother.
His mother wrote to him saying the girls were being wonderful – ‘Miranda especially helpful and understanding – and looking so pretty with gorgeous liquid brown eyes like Devon pools’. Here, she was referring to a stretch of the River Teign where he used to play when staying with his grandparents when his father was away at sea. He says, ‘Those deep brown pools, with their golden shingle which shone through to the surface in the sunlight, were magical, and they perfectly evoked Miranda’s eyes.’
As things became more stressful on board, the captain found the letters something of a distraction. In a 2007 BBC documentary largely based on his memoirs, he remembered, ‘I was very keen to get a last letter to say everything was well at home, the children were all right, and then I wanted to forget home. Put it behind me, on a sort of happy note… You really have to concentrate on the people you are leading and the matters in hand.’
His crew certainly needed him. HMS Coventry’s fate went from bad to worse and, eventually, on 25 May 1982, the destroyer was hit by Argentinean aircraft. The crew were prepared for a day filled with action as it was Argentina’s national day, and emotions were going to be high. They fired a Sea Dart to ward the enemy off, but it flew straight into the hills. The nearby Broadsword had a technical hitch with their missile, so were unable to shoot the Argentinean aircraft down. They opened fire but, once out of missiles, with machine gun fire desperately firing, were reduced to waiting in silence. Two 1,000lb bombs fell on the ship, their explosions letting off a flash and unbearable heat. Many on board suffered severe flesh wounds; Hart Dyke himself sustained burns to the face, hands and wrists. While the ship’s company attempted to escape, the captain awoke to a near-empty cabin and, suffocating from the smoke, felt near to