COMEDY list.co.uk/comedy
HITLIST THE BEST COMEDY EVENTS
✽ Eric and Little Ern Jonty Stephens and Ian Ashpitel make the dreams of Morecambe and Wise fans come true by resurrecting the pair on stage. It’s all terribly uncanny. See preview, page 56. The Brunton, Musselburgh, Fri 14 Nov; King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Mon 24 Nov.
✽ Miranda Sings See preview, left. City ✽ The Colour Ham Magic and mayhem from Gav, Kev and Colin. The Stand,
Halls, Glasgow, Sun 16 Nov. Glasgow, Mon 17 Nov.
MIRANDA SINGS Being deliberately bad has never been more profi table
T he term ‘YouTube sensation’ might now be almost as redundant and meaningless as ‘genius’ or ‘hilarious’ with everything and everyone being dubbed that. But with 2.5m subscribers to her channel and her videos having received over 250m views, Miranda Sings can lay claim to that title without any fear of contradiction.
But mucking about in your bedroom or on the beach in front of a camera is one thing, getting up on stage and recreating the ‘magic’ is quite another. Yet the shows she put on during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe proved that Colleen Ballinger (sorry to break the illusion for anyone that Miranda Sings might actually be real) had a few interesting tricks up her sleeve in between the ‘songs’ and awkward audience interaction. The problem a character act has when playing more than one person on stage is the physical transformation between personae. Most will simply pop behind the
54 THE LIST 13 Nov–11 Dec 2014
curtain and use a voice track to distract the audience from the fact nothing is going on in front of them while changing their kit and make-up. Ballinger solves this by slowly becoming Miranda in front of us, slipping ill-fitting trousers and a buttoned-up shirt over a cocktail dress, carelessly daubing lipstick across her mouth while a lovely singing voice steadily breaks out into the off-tune wail and badly-pitched mewl that has previously slaughtered covers of Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj and Sia. It’s fair to say that Miranda is not going to be for everyone and that watching someone being deliberately bad for an evening might seem like a waste of people’s time. But if audiences merrily pile through the door on a regular basis to see a bigoted pub landlord for fun, then why shouldn’t people lap up Miranda Sings? (Brian Donaldson)
City Halls, Glasgow, Sun 16 Nov.
✽ Jo Caulfield Presents . . . The Speakeasy Two more bills which seem to feature every kind of live act except mime artists. Will one of these nights break that mould? Probably not. Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, Tue 18 Nov, Tue 9 Dec.
✽ Dylan Moran A comic whose ‘try-out’ gags are way better than most stand-ups’ finest material does a work-in-progress thing. The Stand, Edinburgh, Thu 20–Sat 22, Mon 24 Nov; The Stand, Glasgow, Wed 26 Nov.
✽ Romesh Ranganathan An Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee who will probably
be ludicrously famous within the next 18 months as he delivers his dry, semi-miserable wit. Drygate, Glasgow, Fri 21 Nov.
✽ Daniel Sloss A series of frank tales by the Fife lad who is definitely now all grown-
up. Though that Xbox obsession shows no sign of abating. The Garage, Glasgow, Fri 28 Nov.
✽ Katherine Ryan With Glam Role Model,
the UK-based Canadian comic unleashes some talon-sharp comedy about representations of women in the media and society in general. Òran Mór, Glasgow, Sat 29 Nov; The Stand, Edinburgh, Sun 30 Nov.