by Miranda Hart
Miranda is making breakfast. There are two eggs with faces drawn on and parsley for hair. She has made spoon shaped toast to dip. ‘Good Morning’ is playing.
INT. FLAT
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA, SINGING) Good morning, good morning! Sunbeams will soon smile through, good morning, good morning, (TO CAMERA) to you and you and you and you. Look, toast spoons! I’m feeling good about today, it’s got a sort of frisson about it. So, news. Mike and I still together, all good, but when he tells me he loves me, I freak out, can’t say it back.
EXT. RIVER (FLASHBACK)
Mike and Miranda are walking down the quayside.
MIKE: I love you.
MIRANDA: Oh well, well done and you’re welcome and what a boost! (LAUGHS; PRETENDS HER HAND IS A FAN) It’s a fan hand. Forsooth sir!
INT. FLAT
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) I need to workshop the issue with Stevie but we’ve fallen out. Apparently I’ve ignored her since having a boyfriend. Objection my lord! Although at disco karaoke finals.
INT. KARAOKE NIGHT (FLASHBACK)
Stevie as Jennifer Grey and Miranda as Patrick Swayze from the Dirty Dancing film. They are dancing to ‘I’ve Had The Time of My Life’.
Miranda dances down the aisle briefly. She turns to Stevie. Stevie nods to go for the lift. Stevie runs towards Miranda, lifts off, Miranda sees Mike coming in, turns to wave and kiss him. Stevie flies past, out of frame.
INT. FLAT
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) What else to impart? Mum’s having a tennis club dinner tonight. She doesn’t want me there. Apparently I let her down last year. Sidebar m’lord!
INT. POSH DRINKS PARTY
Miranda is sitting on an elaborately laid table. A waiter passes with drinks.
MIRANDA: Oh I’ll ‘serve’ drinks.
She gets a tennis racket and ‘serves’ glasses at people.
PENNY: I don’t know who this woman is.
INT. FLAT
‘Good Morning’ is still playing.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) Right! (STARTS DANCING) I declare this cheeky little day ready and open for the business we call life!
INT. RESTAURANT
The restaurant has had a refurb. Perhaps a slightly different feel. And decorations (cokeys grill sign gone). It still needs things doing. A shelf to be put up, there’s a power drill on the bar, a table with candles/fairy lights that need distributing, maybe chairs in wrapping etc. Mike and Miranda are having breakfast. Mike has lots of papers, and his phone out on the table. Gary is busy and stressed.
MIRANDA: Oh Gary, look at you in your own restaurant.
MIKE: Are you renaming it?
MIRANDA: What, Gary’s?
GARY: What’s wrong with ‘Gary’s’?
MIKE: Well it’s like a greasy spoon.
MIRANDA: Yeah it’s like, it’s like a chippy is ‘Gary’s’, isn’t it? Yeah. No, seriously, what are you calling it?
Gary shows the sign: ‘Gary’s’.
MIRANDA: No that’s lovely, no that’s perfect.
MIKE: It’s very you.
MIRANDA: Manly, yeah.
GARY: Manly? Good because now manning up to put sign up.
MIRANDA: Good luck, man who gets nervous voting for Strictly and is scared of mice and geese?
GARY: It’s the hissing. They hiss.
Stevie enters.
MIKE: Ah, morning Stevie, do you want to join?
STEVIE: (POINTEDLY TO MIRANDA) Fine on my own.
She struggles to get on a stool.
MIRANDA: Struggling to get on the stool, are we?
STEVIE: Pretending this isn’t our second breakfast, are we? (MIRANDA LOOKS SHEEPISH) I won!
GARY & MIKE: Guys! I do not need this today.
MIKE: Our family dog, my dog, Daisy, might have to be put down.
GARY: But more importantly, hello, restaurant opening tonight?
MIKE: More importantly?
MIRANDA: OK, can we all just calm it please? Everyone seems at odds. Just calm.
Pause.
MIRANDA: Do you know what my favourite three little words are?
Mike looks hopeful.
All day breakfast.
GARY: I’m going to start doing it.
MIRANDA: Shut up! It’s the best thing since sliced bread. It is sliced bread. Then it’s toasted and an egg’s popped on.
STEVIE: Mike, please ask your girlfriend, who loves you so much she…
MIKE: (OVER STEVIE) Well—
STEVIE: Ignores best friends, if she would for once share her pancakes?
Miranda gets up with a pancake and moulds it on to Stevie’s face. Mike gets up to take a call.
MIRANDA: (WHILST PUTTING PANCAKE ON STEVIE) Oh, sorry about this, oh no I really am sorry. I mean if I could stop I would.
STEVIE: Well that is it. I will show you how angry I am by my exit march. (FURIOUSLY MARCHES OUT) See my physical anger!
MIRANDA: Strutting like an ageing majorette, are we?
MIKE: I’m going to have to dash. I will see you later.
MIRANDA: OK.
They kiss.
MIKE: I love you.
MIRANDA: (FANS) Oh! Well, um… (HUMS THE NOKIA THEME TUNE AND PICKS UP HER FORK) Hello?
Gary switches on the power tool at mains. It shudders on the bar. He screams. Mike picks it up and switches it off.
GARY: (TAKING POWER TOOL) Thank you, Mike. I don’t need a man who cries about a dog to show me how to—
MIKE: Actually Daisy’s been with us for fiften years.
GARY: How do you turn this on?
Mike switches it back on, revs it. Gary revs it back.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) It’s not just me that’s finding this erotic is it?
(TO THEM) Keep wielding, men!
They stare. Miranda clocks camera.
INT. SHOP
Miranda gallops in. Stevie is working and still cross.
MIRANDA: Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, Stevie… Mike just told me he loved me again and I couldn’t reply.
STEVIE: Talk to the face ’cos the hand ain’t listening!
MIRANDA & STEVIE: That’s the wrong way round.
MIRANDA: Yeah. Oh, come on Stevie I need you. We’re like a sofa and a little pouffe. It’s clean sheet night tonight. Who am I going to change my duvet with? We could play ‘Sheet Over Head Guess What Fruit’s Being Thrown at You?’ You love that!
Penny enters, on the phone.
PENNY: Delicious to talk to you darling, lots of love, bye! (PRESSES BUTTON ON PHONE) Ghastly woman.
BELINDA: (OOV – FROM PHONE) Who is?
MIRANDA: (WHISPERS) You’re still on speaker. She’s still there, she’s still there.
PENNY: (JUMPS; COVERING UP) Ghastly woman I see before me… yes, Miranda. (FAKE LAUGH) Bye Belinda. (MIRANDA SWITCHES PHONE OFF) She’s convinced that my tennis dinner won’t be nearly as good as hers last year. Over my yoga-plated, flab free, super firm, what I call, buttocks. Now, do you think that Mike would…
Suddenly Raymond Blanc walks in. Penny does a double take and starts whispering and pointing excitedly. Stevie does the same.
MIRANDA: (TO CAMERA) What’s happening? (SEES HIM) Oh, oh. Raymond Blanc! (TO PENNY AND STEVIE) You look like you’re doing Riverdance.
PENNY: You’d be the same if your pin-up suddenly walked in.
STEVIE: Is Gary Barlow here?
MIRANDA: Is Theo Paphitis here?
STEVIE & PENNY: Theo Paphitis?
Miranda clocks camera.
PENNY: (GASPS) I could ask Raymond to the dinner. If I got a celeb to the do – in your face, Belinda!
Penny approaches Raymond.
PENNY: Bonjour Monsieur Blanc.
RAYMOND: Bonjour mademoiselle.
PENNY: (LAUGHS COQUETTISHLY) Je suis avoir un soiree. Je voudrais vous… tu? Sorry, spat… (SHE WIPES HIS FACE) Pour le mingling. And I can give you a good function. No, no, no, I don’t mean… unless… (FRENCH NOISES) Pardon!
Raymond starts to leave.
PENNY: H
e’s going. (FOLLOWS)
MIRANDA: Don’t start stalking again.
PENNY: I’ll observe with binoculars at the minimum distance as laid down by Barry Mannilow’s lawyers.
She exits.
MIRANDA: (TO STEVIE) I presume you’re still not speaking to me. So as your superior I would like you to send off this letter to British Gas. Thanking you.
Pointing at it on counter. She goes upstairs and trips.
STEVIE: Tripped.
MIRANDA: I meant to. I meant to go up the stairs like this.
She trips and skips the whole way up.
Fade to black.
INT. MIRANDA’S SITTING ROOM
Miranda starts to change duvet cover.
MIRANDA: Right OK, I can change a duvet cover on my own. Don’t need her help, it’s fine.
She gets in a complete muddle by doing the turning cover inside out and release manoeuvre, but she has the wrong corners, she ends up inside the duvet trying to crossly work it out.
MIRANDA: Stevie! I can’t find the right corners!
INT. SHOP
Miranda comes down the stairs.
MIRANDA: Stevie. Be my friend again. If somebody’s pulling a duvet cover on, (SINGS) she’s the one.
JIM: (SINGS TO HIMSELF) She’s the one-one-one.
Miranda looks to him and to camera, unnerved. Mike rushes in.
MIKE: (TO MIRANDA) Wallet, wallet, wallet, where, where, where, where?
MIRANDA: Table, table, table. Everyone’s at odds, odds, odds!
He goes upstairs.
Seriously now Stevie, what happens if he says I love you again? OK this is code red. Amber alert rising to pink, dogger moving east, showers later. That’s the shipping forecast! (TO JIM) You, how do I tell someone I love them?
JIM: Oh um write it on a muffin and give it to him.
MIRANDA: Well even if I knew how to make a muffin I wouldn’t have time to make a muffin, he’s upstairs!
JIM: I didn’t know that.
MIRANDA: Think!
Mike comes running downstairs.
MIKE: Sorry I shouted. Crazy day. Um, I’m no, I’ll tell you later. I love you.
MIRANDA: Well I, err, I… Eyes are (A DITTY) to see with, noses are to smell with.
Mike smiles and exits. Jim is looking bewildered. He has his back to Miranda and Mike.
MIRANDA: (TO JIM) That was your fault. Now help me workshop why I can’t say I love you. Stay and hang.
JIM: No, I should really—
MIRANDA: STAY AND HANG!
JIM: Right, well, what springs to mind when I say, what do you love?
MIRANDA: Good, liking this. Don’t worry, Stevie, I’ve got a new friend.
Stevie angry marches to the kitchen.
Strutting like a toddler modelling Baby Gap, are we? (TO JIM) Right.
JIM: OK, what do you love?
MIRANDA: Doughnuts.
JIM: Again, what was your first love?
MIRANDA: Doughnuts.
JIM: More emotional. What makes your heart skip?
MIRANDA: Doughnuts.
JIM: I think I know what this means. You’re not in love your boyfriend and it’s only fair to split up with him.
He starts to go.
MIRANDA: (PANICKING) What? What? You can’t leave me with that! Oh, my lovely Mike. I’m going to beanbag.
She collapses on bean bag, panicking.
Stevie. Stevie!
STEVIE: Miranda?
MIRANDA: He said… (HIGH PITCHED PANIC)
STEVIE: Alright, calm. (TO JIM) Now step back, I’m Miranda’s number one workshopper. She’s emotionally constipated and I’m her metaphorical prune.
MIRANDA: She’s back. Love oo!
STEVIE: Luv oo.
They hug.
JIM: Love oo!
He goes to hug them
MIRANDA & STEVIE: No!
STEVIE: Now… (HELPS MIRANDA OUT OF BEAN BAG). As (POINTING AT JIM) this suggests, Mike is not what makes your heart skip. I mean you love him but you’re not in love with him. That’s why you can’t say it. I’m right aren’t I?
MIRANDA: Yes. Oh my Marple!
STEVIE: Now, we need to work out how you’ll end it.
JIM: Can’t she just tell him?
STEVIE: Just tell him? This guy! Miranda can’t be direct. It’s a condition. I call it Pushy Mother-itis and Acute English-ness-ness-ness. She had to write a letter to switch gas suppliers.
MIRANDA: Too scared to ring. They make me feel guilty, I end up signed to all protection plans and offering them a place to stay if they ever visit from Mumbai. I mean to be fair, Raj and Miri were very nice.
STEVIE: Oh they were lovely.
MIRANDA: I’m gonna have to write Mike a letter, it’s the only way.
JIM & STEVIE: It’s too mean!
STEVIE: Come on. Think and pace.
JIM: No, I really should be going.
STEVIE: Think and pace!
Miranda and Stevie pace. Jim starts to copy.
INT. SHOP – A LITTLE LATER
There is a flip chart up with ‘How To Dump’ as a heading. A list of suggestions include: dumpogram, get Stevie to do it, text, email, interpretive dance…
STEVIE: Well we’ve run out of options.
MIRANDA: Well I’ve written him that letter…
STEVIE: You can’t send that. Why can’t you be less mimsy?
Penny enters with binoculars around her neck.
PENNY: What’s going on?
JIM: She can’t be direct because of a pushy mother…
Miranda and Stevie run forward in panic.
STEVIE: … She loves very much.
MIRANDA: (TO JIM) That’s my mother.
JIM: Oh heavens above!
PENNY: Who is this?
MIRANDA & STEVIE: We don’t know.
PENNY: I’m not pushy. Now Miranda, you are to drop everything and order Mike to help me tonight. I can’t find Raymond but Mike could get us news coverage for the dinner.
JIM: (LOOKING OUT) Isn’t that Raymond Blanc?
PENNY: Where? Where?
She rushes out, bumps into Mike and pushes him to one side.
Oh get out of the way!
Seeing Mike, Stevie pushes the flipchart over.
MIKE: What’s going on?
JIM: We’re workshopping because she realises she doesn’t love Mike.
MIRANDA: Mike Owen. Mike Owen. Mark Owen. I don’t love Mark Owen.
STEVIE: Nor do I. I love Gary Barlow.
Jim looks confused.
MIRANDA: (WHISPERING TO JIM) That’s Mike.
JIM: This is a nightmare!
MIRANDA: (TO MIKE) She loves Gary Barlow.
JIM: I love Mark Owen.
MIRANDA: He loves Mark Owen. I love Robbie Williams.
JIM: We’re setting up a Take That tribute band.
ALL: (SINGING) Never forget, where you’re coming from.
JIM: (OVER-THE-TOP SINGING) Never pretend that it’s all real.
MIRANDA: (TO JIM) Too much.
MIKE: Right. I forgot I need a tie. I left one here. And we need to have a talk at some point.
He goes upstairs.
JIM: Ah, but what does he need to talk about? If I’m not mistaken he’s got proposey eyes.
STEVIE: Don’t be ridiculous, she’s splitting up with him.
MIRANDA: Oh but I’m still mimsy. The thought of telling him, he’s so gorgeous.
We hear a door slam. Stevie and Jim hide behind the counter. Mike comes down.
MIRANDA: And the thing is well now it looks like I’m talking to no one! Mike, listen, I need to talk to you actually. I love being with you but I just feel that I need a breather. Breeder. Breeder. Dog breeder. Horses. Horse dogs. I’m gonna breed horse dogs. Yeah. Dogs that you can ride. Dog dressage. Neigh! Woof! Sorry, I’m all over the place like soap in a shower. (BOUNCES UP AND DOWN) Where is it? Where’s the soap? Where has it gone? (GRABS HER LETTER) Right OK, hang on, it says it all there.
Mike re
ads the letter.
MIKE: OK, well, it’s a bold decision but I understand.
MIRANDA: You do?
MIKE: Yeah, if you want to leave British Gas it’s your call.
MIRANDA: Wrong letter! (TO CAMERA) Wrong letter!
JIM & STEVIE: Wrong letter! Wrong letter!
Miranda spins in a panic.
STEVIE: Follow him! Emergency walk! Go!
Miranda emergency walks out.
EXT. STREET
Mike is ahead tying his tie. Miranda emergency walking.
MIRANDA: Mike. Mike. Hi, listen. You know you were talking about working abroad? Well maybe that’s a good idea.
MIKE: Oh my.
MIRANDA: I’m so sorry.
MIKE: It’s Raymond Blanc. I’m a massive fan. (TO RAYMOND) My name’s Michael Jackford. I work at the television station.
Mike shakes his hand and starts to walk with him. Miranda looks annoyed. We see Penny on the other side of the road with binoculars stalking Raymond. She doesn’t look where she is going and falls into a road sweeper’s bin.
INT. SHOP
Miranda, Stevie and Jim are sitting with cups of tea.
MIRANDA: Today was meant to be a good day, it had a frisson about it.
Stevie takes her cup to the kitchen.
JIM: I should go. I don’t even know why I’m still here.
Jim takes his cup to the kitchen. Gary rushes in. Tea towel over his shoulder. Power tool in belt.
GARY: Hi.
MIRANDA: Oh, are you OK?
GARY: Stressed! Cooking deliveries. Rose keeps texting – even though we’re not together she still wants to come tonight. Listen, I really, really need your help. Do you think you could spare a few hours this afternoon?
MIRANDA: Yeah, sure, I’ll come over later.
GARY: Oh, thank you, thank you. (KISSES HER & EXITS) Oh! And by the way, man has put up sign. (WHIRS POWER TOOL; SCREAMS) Don’t laugh.
HE GOES. STEVIE ENTERS.
MIRANDA: I wouldn’t laugh. It’s one of the reasons I love you.
STEVIE: What did you just say?
MIRANDA: I just said I love you but I mean, just flippantly. How I say it to you.