The sun has shone for at least seven minutes this weekend. The pigeons at the roof of the Corpus library are indulging in ever more exuberant mating calls. Yesterday, I saw a tourist accidentally execute the most impressive dismount off their punt and into the Cam in perhaps all of living memory. There is a lot to be happy about.

Yet I have not always been blessed with a similarly sunshine-y disposition. I was once unenthused by the prospect of navigating the sea of Cath Kidston and selfie sticks that is King’s Parade; unsatisfied by my daily fill of Sidgwick site and cuppa soup. I was even unappreciative of the aesthetic appeal of pink backpacks, whimsically patterned skirts and light-up trainers. But then I found Kimmy.

The already-converted will know that I am referring to Ellie Kemper’s title character of the Netflix Original show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Kimmy is a 29-year-old woman, a new arrival in New York, with all the squeaky clean enthusiasm and worldly knowledge of an 8th-grade girl living in 1990s Indiana. The reason for this is that she has spent the previous fifteen years since being that very same 14-year-old, trapped inside the bunker of cult leader/karate aficionado Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (a delightfully unappealing Jon Hamm). How such a dark matter could ever be crafted into the hilarious show is an intricate wizardry that only creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock could ever hope to master. These comedic veterans have handled it with aplomb, supported by a formidably funny cast. 

Though the wacky gurning, pratfalls and wide-eyed misunderstandings of Kemper’s Kimmy is essentially old-school silliness, the supporting cast bring a more sardonic and satirical dimension to the show. Tituss Burgess gives a deservedly award-winning comic performance as Kimmy’s struggling actor roommate, the self-centred and exhaustingly flamboyant Titus Andromedon. With Carol Kane as a hipster-hating, New York pensioner and Ki Hong Lee providing Kimmy’s love interest, the cast is teeming with standout actors, previously unknown.

This show packs a lot into the short airtime, so you rarely feel like you are waiting for the next joke to arrive. A pleasing proportion of the series is dedicated to the musical antics of Broadway-hopeful, Titus. Not only is the real-life Titus an exceptional comedian, but he has also spent much of his career in his musical theatre; we are frequently blessed by the angelic trills of his effortless tenor vibrato.

As for the theme song, it provides an incisive parody of those musical-inspired viral videos (cast your minds back to ‘Aint Nobody Got Time For That’) which circulate round the internet whenever a story (such as Kimmy’s own kidnapping) need to be made “more interesting”. It strikes a chord with American media’s frequent presentation of real life, and with commentators (often portrayed as working-class or black) as pantomime fools. After several choruses of an upbeat gospel choir singing "Unbreakable! They’re alive, dammit!", the song ends with the comedic neighbour breaking off into an intellectual musing: “This is going to be a, uh, fascinating transition”.

The writer’s presentation of race has not been without controversy. One of the first season’s storylines sees Kimmy’s trophy wife employer, Jacqueline Vorhees (played by Caucasian actress, Jane Krakowski), reveal that she is actually of Lakota Native American heritage, but that she intends to pass for white. Fey seems to respond to the criticism of this in the third episode of the second season, in which Titus stars in a one-man play as a Japanese geisha. When the collective forces of ‘The Internet’ show up to his opening night, ready to be outraged, they instead find themselves genuinely moved by his sensitive portrayal. Whether this, as a form of apology or explanation, is something of a cop-out is not my place to say, but the episode in its own right is intelligently written, and ends up being as endearing as it is funny. This new season also allows greater time to explore the Vorhees subplot, with Gil Birmingham and Sheri Foster both giving marvelous turns as Vorhees’s parents, exasperated by their daughter’s gentrified ways.

It is difficult to deny that Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt treats all its characters with the same undefeated affection that its protagonist does to everyone she meets - be it her Uber driver, a stray dog, or the guy who invites her into his van to ‘fit her for some clothes’ (“Again, Kimmy?” asks an unsympathetic Titus). At only 25 minutes a pop, Kimmy is the ideal stress-destroying revision break. Let the spot-on performance of Ellie Kemper bring some red-headed warmth to your library of choice, particularly if Cambridge’s real life rays of sunshine are not quite so reliable.