Miranda

Miranda isn’t your average girly girl and she seems to be a constant disappointment to her mother Penny (Patricia Hodge) who keeps trying to set her up with potential suitors, regardless of whether they are actually related to Miranda or not. At 6 foot 1, Miranda gets called ‘Sir’ once too often, much to the amusement of her childhood friend Stevie (Sarah Hadland) who manages Miranda’s joke shop. Miranda bumps into an old friend from University, Gary, (Tom Ellis) who is working in the restaurant next door, as the new Chef. When he asks her out for a drink to catch up, she gets over excited by the prospect of her first real date and decides it’s time to try and be more girly. She goes shopping for a new outfit to impress Gary but her make-over doesn’t go quite to plan. After begrudgingly attending a reunion lunch with her old boarding school chums Tilly (Sally Phillips) and Fanny (Katy Wix) she ends up being talked into helping them with their wedding dress shopping… against her better judgement.

Miranda is rather British when it comes to ‘Sex’ or ‘Shenanigans’ as she likes to call it. After a boarding school upbringing she always seems to go to pieces around men. Trying to overcome her hang-ups she decides the way forward with Gary (Tom Ellis) would be to try and create a ‘romantic moment’ so he’ll see her in a sexual light. Stevie (Sarah Hadland) persuades her to be less British about Sex and to join an evening class to learn French ‘The Language of Love’, she goes, but only to discover it's run by her old school teacher Mr Clayton (Peter Davison) who Stevie then starts dating much to Miranda’s disgust. Miranda then thinks that a Tango class would be a more romantic class for her and Gary, but again things don’t quite go to plan when they encounter a ferocious Tango Teacher (Josephina Gabrielle) who has other ideas for Gary. When Gary becomes annoyed by Miranda’s lack of appreciation for his recipes, he suggests he gives her a cooking lesson, Miranda is convinced that the passionate Chef won’t be able to resist the new ‘lover of life’ her and is convinced the heat of the kitchen will finally bring on their ‘Romantic Moment’ together…

Miranda’s Mother Penny (Patricia Hodge) is constantly disappointed that Miranda runs a Joke Shop rather than having a ‘proper job’, so when Penny bumps into one of Miranda’s old school friends, Tilly (Sally Phillips), she lies and says that Miranda has a great new job. Although annoyed, Miranda decides she could prove everyone wrong and get herself a new job if she wanted one. She applies for a job at a Department store but finds she can’t stop herself singing throughout the interview. Her shop manager and friend Stevie (Sarah Hadland) complains that Miranda has been wasting money on Gym membership she never uses. Miranda tries to cancel her membership, but the Gym attendant (Michael Wildman) points out that the contract is fool proof. Miranda tries to think up various ways of getting out of the contract. After getting caught by Tilly when helping out as a waitress for the night in the restaurant, she finally decides to come clean to Tilly and be proud of her real job, just as Gary (Tom Ellis) returns from a RAF reunion still in his uniform, convincing Tilly that Miranda is in fact an undercover Officer in the secret service.

Miranda is well aware that she’s not exactly cool, that’s easily proved by the fact that the only songs on her MP3 player are by ‘Billy Joel’, but being young free and single has its advantages, like jetting off to Thailand on holiday for a few days. Although when it comes down to it she’d rather not bother with the hassle of going quite so far, so she books herself into a hotel across the road instead without telling her Mother Penny (Patricia Hodge) or friends she’s not actually leaving the country. She thoroughly enjoys the hotel room experience and even makes some new friends at the hotel, helpful porter Jason (Luke Pasqualino) and with conference organiser Colin (Dave Lamb). As her stay goes on, she literally becomes a new woman.

Miranda has spent most of her life avoiding being set up by her mother Penny (Patricia Hodge), who seems to revel in throwing literary themed parties to find Miranda a suitor. After deciding that it would be easier for all concerned if she and Gary (Tom Ellis) were just friends, old school pal Tilly (Sally Phillips) sets her up on a blind date with an army doctor friend, ‘Dreamboat Charlie’ (Adrian Scarborough). The date doesn’t go quite to plan and so Penny again insists on throwing a Pride and Prejudice party to introduce Miranda to a suitable man. Miranda it seems is notoriously bad at coming up with excuses but when she sees a photo of her intended date he’s so bad the only option left is to lie and to ‘come out’ to her mother to try and stop her matchmaking.

When a handsome guy leaves his wallet in the shop, (Phil Brodie), Miranda and Stevie (Sarah Hadland) think it could be a sign, especially when they discover he’s called ‘Robert Husband’. They become highly competitive and try to find out who he’d prefer to take to dinner if he had to choose one of them. They discover from a picture in his wallet, that he owns a dog, so Stevie and Miranda try and engineer bumping into him in the park by suddenly both owning dogs. Meanwhile Tilly (Sally Phillips) has invited Miranda to Henley Regatta under the strict proviso that she doesn’t embarrass her and the other girls. They complain that Miranda always seems to be inappropriately naked in public. Miranda is determined to be able to cope at a tricky social occasion just once. Old friend Gary (Tom Ellis) seems to be the only person who believes Miranda should just be her self. Meanwhile Gary has been offered a new job in Hong Kong but seems to be waiting for someone to persuade him to stay, but will Miranda take the hint?...