10 Best Performances In How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is all about the characters, and how those characters change with time and tackle life's obstacles. They make mistakes, they mess things up, they fall in and out of love and, in the end, push through to bigger and better things.

With that in mind, it's fair to say the show has conjured up some fantastic performances from its cast - not just from the core group, but from recurring and guest stars who proved pivotal to the journeys of Ted Mosby and his friends.

The joy of the show is its ability to balance the moving with hysterical, opening various avenues for the cast to both cut loose and break hearts. It's a tough balancing act, but one which the vast majority of actors handle brilliantly within the show.

The following list will take a walk down memory lane, admiring some of the greatest performances the show has ever graced audiences with. From the career-driven to the womaniser, the parents to the enemies, here are the 10 best acting performances in How I Met Your Mother.

Whatever your thoughts on Britney Spears, there can be no denying that she was made to play Abby. The receptionist at the dermatology clinic of Stella, she briefly appears in the episode Ten Sessions, portrayed as a naive and sensitive woman who forms a crush on series protagonist Ted Mosby.

In the end, she goes out with Barney, only to be broken by the fact that he never called her again. She reappears in the episode Everything Must Go, where it's revealed that she has been sabotaging Barney's hook-ups as revenge for his betrayal. This vengefulness is quickly forgotten when the pair decide to team up against Ted, who Barney has fallen out with and Abby still obsesses over.

Spears is great fun in the role, hilarious, ditzy and cool, and though she's only around for a brief spell (and gets promptly, jarringly forgotten about), she makes a great impression and proves her salt as a solid comedic actress.