Miranda Hart on spreading joy

The actress and comedian is on a mission to spread joy

Walking my dog in west london, i have to ad mi ti am partial to a little eavesdropping. it has always been one of life’ s great pleasures: my mother says i used to stare open-mouthed at people in restaurants and parks when i was younger, and she was constantly reminding me it wasn’t polite. But dog walking is a safe way to hear some lovely snippets.

my recent over hearings have all been on the subject of whether spring is in the air or not. i heard one mother explaining to her daughter, ‘Spring is when the plants all start to flower again, the leaves come out and we all start to feel a little bit better… hopefully. Wait there… i’m just getting some wine from the shop…’ The next thing i heard was, ‘… well, if the plane does plum met then you are gone any way, so you might as well just get on it… and if you get back for spring, then that’ s a bonus .’ and finally, ‘… seriously, i’ve had enough of doris’s wind, come on spring .’ if you didn’t know that the recent storm was called doris, that would have been a very confusing sentence.

These mutterings coincided with me receiving the first hard copy of my new book for Comic Relief, called

Miranda’s Daily Dose of Such Fun!. i am not sharing this with the sole aim of promoting the book (all proceeds go to Comic Relief anyway, so iamun ashamed ), but because i needed to roadtest it. my eavesdropping had made me aware that there were some fed-up people out there, needing the wine purchase before the yardarm, having a morbid fear of flying, and desperate for some spring warmth. So i thought, let’s see if my book does what it claims to do: ‘provide daily tasks to promote a more engaging, caring and jolly life’.

i opened the book and read that day’s entry. The task was to make a ‘blindfold purchase’: go to a shop of your choice, close your eyes or blindfold yourself (both easier with a friend), and buy the first thing you put your hands on (steady on, mat ron ), then give it to someone on the street. i felt slightly awkward about going through with the task, but i fi can’t do it the ni can hardly force readers to, and the book has been printed now. Still, i made someone else do it. i grabbed a friend and off we went to my local shop. He shut his eyes as we walked in and grabbed something, which turned out to be a jar of instant coffee. We were a bit disappointed because it didn’t feel like the best gift to give, but i said we must adhere to my rules, and buy it we did.

Then the mission began to find someone on the street to give it to. it led to a fun conversation with a deeply confused man. ‘you are giving this to me ?’‘ yes, it’s for you, you are wonderful, have a lovely afternoon .’‘ What is it?’ ‘it’s coffee.’ ‘no, but what is it really?’ That was odd because it was clearly a jar of instant coffee, so i said again, ‘Umm, coffee,’ and explained the game. He smiled and said, ‘you’ve just made my day you silly fool,’ a nd bumbled happily off before turning back to shout, ‘i don’t drink coffee.’ We laughed. He laughed. We then went back into the shop and did another blind fold purchase, and a tired mother ended up with a box of Roses chocolates.

it felt so good not only to have a little moment of fun away from work, but to engage with people and make them smile. my book blooming well works, i thought to myself. an dig ave myself a counter cultural pat on the back. We’ve got to get better at selfcongratulation, i think. So, well done me. Spring is in the air… Such fun! Miranda’s Daily Dose of Such Fun! (Hodder & Stoughton, £6.99) is out now