Miranda Hart - Such Fun. Sophie Johnson
encounter – Julie didn’t recognise her and Miranda became flustered – she was excited enough, telling an interviewer, ‘I’ve just met one of my heroes, Julie Walters… It wasn’t the best of meetings to be honest. I was gunning that she might go, “Oh, I’ve seen your work,” but she hasn’t, and that’s fair enough.’
Today, Victoria Wood and Julie Walters tend to restrict their collaborations to Christmas specials, French and Saunders have officially split, performing their last show on Drury Lane in 2008 (though they have reunited recently for occasional radio specials), and Catherine Tate is taking serious acting roles, usually alongside David Tennant. The award-winning Channel 4 series Smack the Pony (1999–2003) played an important role in showcasing female character comedians and writers such as Sally Phillips, Doon Mackichan and Fiona Allen. Since it ended, a handful of female sketch shows have come and gone, such as Tittybangbang, Little Miss Jocelyn (both for BBC Three) and E4’s Beehive.
It is now time, though, for a new generation of female comics to emerge. After lying dormant on the circuit, they are now getting opportunities to appear on television. People are calling the double-act Watson & Oliver the new French & Saunders, though they enjoy playing more male parts and offer a more surreal brand of humour. Meanwhile, Emma Fryer, who showed her worth as the stoned kleptomaniac Tanya (to be pronounced ‘Tanyaaah’) in Johnny Vegas’s Ideal, has since written and starred in the BBC Two sitcom, Home Time. Elsewhere, Sharon Horgan’s series Pulling brought attention to her deliciously dark and filthy sense of humour, while Lizzie and Sarah by Julia Davis and Jessica Hynes was a pilot that many loved and thought should have been a full series. For Miranda, one of the rising stars of TV comedy is a fellow comedy actor renowned for her Big Ass Show on ITV. ‘I think someone like Katy Brand’s incredibly brave because she makes herself ridiculous, she makes herself beautiful, she does everything.’ And there are plenty of other promising figures who are gradually establishing themselves via panel games, stand-up and sitcom, Sarah Millican, Roisin Conaty, Pippa Evans, Laura Solon, Joanna Neary and Andi Osho among them.
Over many years, American female comedians – from Roseanne to Sarah Silverman – have become popular in Britain, where their sharp brand of self-deprecation and sarcasm has found enthusiastic followings. A recent import of note has been Kristen Schaal, probably best known as Mel in Flight of the Conchords. After performing at the Edinburgh Festival and clubs across London, she has made an impression on Britain’s audiences, and her show Penelope Princess of Pets was shown as part of Channel 4’s Comedy Lab strand.
The lady of the moment is, without doubt, Tina Fey. She stamped herself on the international consciousness with her impression of former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Since 2007, she has been a writer and lead actor (as Liz Lemon) on the sitcom 30 Rock, but some have tended to load this talented woman with the responsibility of representing funny women. Adam Frucci, who runs a comedy blog, believes: ‘She is in a tough position. Not many comedians are forced to represent their entire gender when all they are just trying to be is funny.’
Inevitably, you can’t please everyone and some think that Liz Lemon conforms to the stereotype of the lonely woman, desperate for a man. Others believe she has only got where she is because of her looks. Jill Filipovic, founder of a blog called Feministe, says, ‘If Tina Fey were ugly, then she would not have the career that she has had. We still don’t see a lot of unconventionally attractive women on TV.’
But Fey also receives her fair share of nasty comments about her looks. She took the opportunity of a newspaper article she had written to publicise her autobiography Bossypants to have her say, explaining, ‘When people care enough to write, the only well-mannered thing to do is to return the gift, so please indulge me as I answer some fans here.’
So, rather than avoid reviews, Tina Fey confronts them and hits back with sassy remarks. To someone posting, ‘When is Tina going to do something about that hideous scar across her cheek?’ she sarcastically replied, ‘The trickier question is what am I going to do? I would love to get your advice, actually. I’m assuming you’re a physician, because you seem really knowledgeable about how the human body works.’
Someone calling themselves ‘Centaurious’ sent the following missive to one site in the small hours: ‘Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll.’ Some would ignore such an attack, others would be affected by it, but Fey faced it with comedy. ‘To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair… As for “ugly, pear-shaped and bitchy”? I prefer the terms “offbeat, business classassed and exhausted”, but I’ll take what I can get.’ And she can’t help but sign off with a dig of her own: ‘Now get to bed, you crazy night owl! You have to be at Nasa early in the morning. So they can look for your penis with the Hubble telescope.’
Just as Miranda Hart followed on from the British comic traditions of Joyce Grenfell, French and Saunders and other female performers, so Tina Fey had a foundation of American TV comedy to build on, which dated back nearly 60 years to Lucille Ball. Ball, the star of I Love Lucy in the 1950s, was a popular female lead whose physical comedy had audiences in hysterics, but she was a relatively non-threatening character. It took characters like Carla, the barmaid in Cheers played by Rhea Perlman in the 1980s and 1990s, to show that comic females on television could ‘grow a pair’. Carla was a smart ass who gave as good as she got, just as crude and biting as the boys. It could be a popular trait in stand-up comedy too – notably through the work of Joan Rivers – but the woman who led this trend on to the small screen was a certain Roseanne Barr. Transferring her stand-up character to television, Roseanne co-wrote her own show and her unyielding matriarchal voice made a huge social impact on the cultural landscape. After Roseanne, Ellen DeGeneres and Brett Butler had their own sitcom vehicles (respectively, Ellen and Grace Under Fire), while there were strong co-starring roles for Julia Louis Dreyfus (Seinfeld), Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) and Jane Krakowski (Ally McBeal, 30 Rock) as the strong women of American sitcom.
So, while Tina Fey is the ruling female in American comedy, Miranda Hart will end up flying the flag here in Britain. Hers is a softer, less aggressive style, and fits well with the national outlook. So, as she developed a stand-up persona for Edinburgh and the ultimate goal of television, what was Miranda hoping to achieve with her act? ‘A lot of women seem to be either very laddy in their stand-up, or don’t want to break their pretty, feminine look.’ Instead, she aimed to avoid being pigeonholed by looking for something more spontaneous. ‘I think it is a shame that more women don’t act the fool and let go a bit – that is what naturally appeals to me but maybe that is just my personality.’ And this isn’t comedy for or about women that she is aiming for. Again, it’s that universal appeal. ‘I think as a comedian you’ve got to be free and you’ve got to have a confidence and you’ve got to be completely free to be laughed at. I see myself as a performer, not as a woman performer or woman writer. I just think of what is funny.’
Before television came calling, Miranda did what so many comedians did before her – she packed her bag full of gags and headed up to Edinburgh, the place where you can make it, where you can get taken seriously, if people notice you at all. But as a female comedian? The Edinburgh Festival is still very much a man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman, eh?
‘I’ll get drunk. I’ll get laid. I’ll get spotted. I’ll get paid.’
– Arthur Smith on the four main ambitions of performing at the Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, or the Fringe, or Ed. Whatever you call it, it’s the world’s largest arts festival and undoubtedly the highlight of the live comedy calendar. Every August, the entire London comedy circuit heads up to the Scottish capital to be discovered