If you’re one of the few people left to sample the delights of Miranda, then don’t worry we’ve complied five essential facts you need to know before the award-winning sitcom returns on Boxing Day!

> Buy the Series 1-2 boxset on Amazon.

5. Miranda Owns A Joke Shop

You may think that a joke shop in a comedy is rather over-egging the pudding but you’d be way off in that assumption here.

The shop’s goods add tenfold to the laughs as does tiny manger Stevie (played by the amazing Sarah Hadland) who uses every opportunity to break out her Heather Small impersonation. Most definitely one of television’s best double acts at the moment.

4. Miranda Has The Mother Of All Mothers

TV legend Patricia Hodge, so popular on the small screen in the late Seventies and throughout the Eighties, has had a diverse career and played some monsters in her time (Margaret Thatcher being one) but here, she’s the most monstery of them all.

Well, to Miranda she is, at any rate. Penny, as she’s also known, haughtily stomps through her scenes and gets the most popular catchphrases from the show – “What I like to call…” and “Such fun!”

3. Miranda Is Awkward

At 6 feet 1 inch tall, the gagstress is not your “normal”-looking individual and she knows it. Hart plays on her physical attributes to the full, always willing to pop off her top (or bottom) if the laugh demands it.

Even with her old boarding school chums she can’t relax (leading to wonderful moments like finding herself attached to a sushi bar conveyor belt). In fact, pretty much every and social situation is an excuse for some toe-curlingly funny moment. Her awkwardness also leads us into…

2. Miranda Has Relationship Issues

And just check out with who! Only hunky Tom Ellis (Doctor Who, The Fades), playing Miranda’s old university chum, Gary.

Now, they’re not a couple (as such) and have faced numerous obstacles in their way (Miranda’s self-consciousness being one of them) but the biggest shock came during Series 2 when it was revealed he married foreign waitress Tamara so she could get a “green card”.

We wonder what Series 3 will bring for the two…?

1. Miranda Talks To The Camera

And looks at it. Repeatedly.

Okay, so, it’s a multi-camera studio sitcom that unashamedly acknowledges, embraces and hugs its format. It’s odd to think it’s in the minority now (along with Not Going Out) but Miranda is a celebration of a now much maligned genre. The IT Crowd was the last great studcom (as we’ve now dubbed it) but whereas the Graham Linehan show was incredibly modern, Hart’s comedy is gentle and almost old-fashioned (almost). Her weekly introductory monologues are a joy to behold whilst her numerous sides to camera are a reminder that the audience are an important part of the fun.

Oh, and in the great traditions of variety and music hall, they always end with a song.

> Buy the Series 1-2 boxset on Amazon.

Are you looking forward to Series 3? Let us know below…