Show Rating:

Miranda Hart is an old-fashioned sort of character actress - meaning, of course, that it's only the one character she can ever play.

Hers is the haughty, posh, sturdy, hockeymistress kind of a gal. Super in a crisis and really in her element taking charge of the WI fete, but with no empathy for any of that fragile girlie stuff.

The premise for It's All About Me is that she's bossed enough people around to get her Fringe showcase off the ground, and now all she has to do his wait for the big theatrical hotshot to arrive to impress him with her talents.

Her character, of course, has no talents. She dances with the grace of a three-legged hippo and even had to invent a new mix of speech and mime ("Smime") to explain her graceless movements.

So far, so familiar - even down to the dippy sidekick she bullies, who's the identical twin of Ab Fab's Bubbles.

This is the sort of show you might have seen countless times before from scores of female drama school graduates who want to break into comedy. The character of the theatrical, show-off madam convinced she's onto a fast track to adulation despite negligible skill seems to be to the aspiring comedienne what Star Wars and masturbation is to the stereotypical male stand-up.

Hart pulls it off with aplomb, though. The semi-autobiographical character is utterly believable and the enthusiasm rubs off.as she encourages us all to celebrate her poshness.

At this particular show, she even had to endure two of the most ignorant, drunken hecklers I've seen on the Fringe (and this is a mild late-afternoon character offering, not some wild Late n Live bearpit) and coped admirably, even though it produced a situation no performer could relax in.

Like her persona, this is a sturdy, robust show with slightly outdated values at its heart. There's little to get really excited about, but it efficiently sets about the task in hand: showcasing those obvious character acting talents.