Miranda Hart

HMS Coventry and Downe House

Hart was born on 14 December 1972. Her father, Captain David Hart Dyke, was a Royal Navy officer who later received a CBE and briefly served as aide-de-camp to the Queen. In the Falklands war he commanded HMS Coventry, which was struck by Argentine forces. He was badly burnt escaping the ship. His daughter was 10.

When she was about 11, her father's work took him to the United States, and she was sent to Downe House, an all-girls boarding school in Berkshire. She went on to study politics at the University of the West of England in Bristol and graduated with a 2:1.

The 2008 Script Reading at the BBC

Her break came in 2008, when she was asked to read a prototype script at the BBC and Jennifer Saunders was in the audience. Two shows came out of it: Miranda Hart's Joke Shop on Radio 2, and a BBC2 sitcom that took her first name as its title.

Miranda was semi-autobiographical, and the series earned several Bafta nominations. In the BBC's 2024 coverage of her memoir it was still the reference point, described as her eponymous BBC show.

Nurse Chummy in Call the Midwife

In January 2012 Hart began her first serious acting role, in the BBC One drama Call the Midwife. She played Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne, known as Nurse Chummy. The part brought her a Bafta nomination for best supporting actress. For three years she kept the sitcom and the drama going at the same time.

Her first Hollywood role followed in 2015, in the comedy Spy. Melissa McCarthy, who had noticed her, called Hart "one of the funniest people I've ever met".

A Tick Bite in Virginia

Hart has traced her long illness to a tick-borne infection picked up as a teenager in Virginia, a Lyme hotspot, where her father was working. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme in October 2024, she said: "Probably when I was about 14 or 15, I got a tick-borne illness... and that's when my symptoms started." She said she had first been diagnosed with ME/CFS, before Lyme disease was identified.

At the Cheltenham Literature Festival a few days later she said: "I've not felt well since I was 15. It got progressively worse." She told the audience: "I kept saying to doctors, I know I'm leading a half-life." She compared it to illness most people know: "So, it's like having flu all the time. With flu you sort of sleep, but you feel like you've never slept."

She has said she collapsed after the final series of Miranda and became bedbound. On the Today programme she described that period: "I was basically bedbound and housebound. There'd be times where I'd look at a glass of water, and think, I don't know how to pick that up." She added: "Unless you've had fatigue [like that], you don't understand what literally not getting off the floor is."

I Haven't Been Entirely Honest With You

Hart told the story in a 2024 book, I Haven't Been Entirely Honest With You, which covers the previous ten years, her health, and her private life. She promoted it in October 2024 on The One Show, on the Today programme with Emma Barnett, and at Cheltenham. The book sets out what she calls "10 keys, which I call my treasures, to living well".

The book and the interviews around it also revealed that she had married at 51. The BBC reported that she was "thrilled" by the marriage. The Press Association quoted her more briefly: "Husband, he's great."

Sources

• Miranda Hart: 'I used to think fame would justify my whole existence'
• Miranda Hart: 'I was never in the cool gang'
• Miranda Hart reveals she got married at 51 and has had Lyme disease - BBC News
• Miranda Hart: Bedbound with Lyme disease, I realised I didn't want to be alone
• Miranda Hart reveals battle with Lyme disease that left her confined to bed
• Miranda Hart says Celebrity Traitors will be challenging due to her chronic illness
• Teaser trailer shows first look at The Celebrity Traitors series two cast