Is this the future of comedy? Miranda Sings, alias US comic Colleen Ballinger, played three sold-out sets in London this weekend with minimal promotion. She has built up her teenage following — her "Mirfandas" — through her YouTube videos. The result is devoted displays of One Direction-style adulation Michael McIntyre can only dream about.
It would be easy to dismiss this lipstick-smeared clownish creation as a throwaway spoofer of celebrity culture. She is best known for her deranged versions of hits such as Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball, which were duly delivered with gawky, gurning panache. But there is much more going on here in a show that is deeper than it initially appears.
The format is a life-coaching lecture, with Miranda advising fans on everything from avoiding porn to “self isteam”. She is funny and a strong role model, with a healthy disdain for pop’s oversexualisation, instead championing her own distinctive look — grungy shirt, Crocs and baggy red trousers. The satire is not exactly mindblowing but the message is undeniably positive.
Plenty of interaction keeps everyone interested and lends proceedings an inclusive feel. Unlike normal comedy gigs where most fans shrink into their seats at the first sign of audience participation, when there was an appeal for volunteers almost every hand shot straight into the air.
There is a little too much dependence on onscreen videos and the reading out of nasty online comments posted by her haters but this is minor cavil. While cynics might dismiss Miranda Sings as an online sensation with a limited offline shelf-life, I suspect that she, or certainly her canny creator, may well still be around when her young fans have children of their own.
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