The woman who is so proud to be fat, she has a doughnut tattoo

Miriam’s Big Fat Adventure ★★★☆☆ This Country ★★★★★

Perhaps it’s her unique ability to liven up any chat show that sparked the idea in a TV executive’s mind that Miriam Margolyes would be the perfect choice to front documentaries.

It turned out not to be a bad punt. In her latest, Miriam’s Big Fat Adventure (BBC2), her third major documentary series for the Beeb, she set out to understand why one third of Britons are obese.

at 4ft 11in and weighing in at 14st 10lb, Miriam knows all about being large. she’s also adamant that nobody can be truly fat and happy, readily admitting: ‘ I’m disgusted at my body, I loathe it.’

she started her journey of discovery by visiting a military style weight-loss bootcamp. No points for originality there.

at the camp she met teenagers who struggled to control their eating, including Georgia, who likened the huge binges she would go on to ‘self-harming’.

But while overweight people like Georgia were keen to address their waistlines, there is also growing ‘body positive’ movement made up of very large women who refuse to change or apologise for their size.

Bethany was so proud to be fat that she had a tattoo of a doughnut on her body to prove it. Then there was Trina who’d started a plus- size dance class. There the women seemed so joyous and empowered that Miriam wondered if she was wrong to state that nobody could be happy being fat.

For all the people she met, it was Miriam’s own experiences with food and body size that provided the most poignant moments.

she hated that fat people are still considered fair game by comedians and her lack of acceptance at school clearly continued to affect her decades later.

‘If you’re mean to fat people, I hate you. I hope you wither on the vine,’ she said.

The problem was the nation’s weight problem has become big business for TV channels, with programmes about obesity on almost every week — Channel 4’s 100 Kilo Kids being the most recent. It meant that even in the hands of someone as likeable and funny as Miriam, the show suffered from fat-programming fatigue.

It was another larger lady who stole the show in This Country ( BBC1) when Mandy harris (ashley McGuire) joined the vicar’s book club in this wickedly funny TV mockumentary set in a Cotswolds village. The problem was Mandy wasn’t prepared to read the books and instead wanted to read out her own disturbing short stories — including one about a man who met a grisly end in a dodgem car.

elsewhere, Kurtan (Charlie Cooper) learned that ray, the half-brother he never knew, had died. It soon became apparent that nobody else knew anything about ray either. he worked for 40 years at Mitsubishi but, at the wake, all a work colleague could recall was: ‘I often heard him say “morning” and “see you tomorrow” except on a Friday when he’d say “see you Monday”.’

Created by siblings Daisy May and Charlie Cooper, This Country is a brilliantly observed look at life in a rural community where work is thin on the ground, but local eccentrics are not.

The comedy has snowballed in popularity, going from a cult BBC3 hit to mainstream airtime with the Coopers’ mantelpiece now, deservedly, groaning with awards including a BaFTa.

I thought the mockumentary format peaked with ricky Gervais’s The Office, but I’d say This Country has it beaten. It’s not often you watch a comedy that makes you anxious you’re going to laugh so much you’ll miss the next killer line.

▪ CHRISTOPHER STEVENS is away.