FESTIVAL COMEDY | The Great Pretenders THE GREAT P
When you’re bringing an alter ego to the Fringe, where does the real person end and the character begin? Claire Sawers tries to
unravel fact from fi ction
N eil Hamburger, Miranda Sings and Brains Mcloud all believe the saying, that the best way to make it, is to fake it. All three have built careers – and August Fringe shows – by pretending to be someone else. But where does the character end and the real person begin? Is there any line between the two anymore? Neil, Miranda and Brains – or Gregg Turkington, Colleen Ballinger and Gavin Bain, to use the names their mothers gave them – might not even know what accent to use if you stopped them in the street.
‘Sometimes people come up and want me to do the whiny Miranda voice, or pose awkwardly like Miranda,’ says Ballinger, the New York- based comedian who pretends to be an awful singer. She fakes the dork- diva schtick so well that she’s had 60 million views on YouTube and gained an army of ‘Mirfandas’ in the process. ‘This probably seems really weird to you, responding sometimes as me, and sometimes as Miranda,’ she laughs. ‘But seriously, it starts coming naturally.’ She demonstrates with a brief, almost ventriloquist- like, catty chat between the two. ‘Are you kidding? Welcome to my brain.’
Ballinger was working in Disneyland, Los Angeles until the YouTube character she made up for fun – a geeky, showtune-murdering, starlet- wannabe – went viral. She based Miranda on the online outpouring of videos made by egomaniac teen girls in bedrooms, screaming dei antly out-of-tune ballads into the void. ‘Initially people really didn’t get that it is an act. I got hate mail because they truly thought I was this obnoxious, overly coni dent person singing songs.’ Ballinger is laughing at the memory. ‘I mean, I know Miranda pretty well now, and in many ways she actually gets things done way better than I do. But I would not get along with this girl if I met her. I’d feel terrible if people thought I was this cocky and rude in real life! Luckily people began to realise, and they’ve got this kind of weird soft spot for her now. ’
For Ballinger, the line is clear. Ask her to l ip between the two voices, and Miranda’s already hogging the conversation. One gives a snappy response, no hesitation, the other pauses to i nd the right answer.
For Gavin Bain, the Dundee boy who faked an American accent, and made a phoney career as an LA rapper, the distinction between the two isn’t always so clear. As half of Silibil N’ Brains – the hoax hip hop duo who blagged a £250,000 Sony record deal, interviewed Beyoncé and partied with Madonna – he had lots of fun. Back as his normal self, he worries he might be disappointing. ‘Going on dates can be difi cult – you’re known as this amazing storyteller and fearless bullshitter. It’s difi cult to live up to that – girls are expecting this drug-taking boy with a massive dick. When I tell them sometimes, I like staying in and watching telly, and I’ve had bedroom problems in the past, that’s probably a let down.’
It’s hard to get a straight answer out of Brains – Mcloud can’t resist stepping into brag about a threesome, or that time he took amphetamines at a nativity play. But apparently the rumours about Daniel Radcliffe
38 THE LIST FESTIVAL 7–14 Aug 2014