Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for Miranda Sings: Selp Helf
Cover image credit:

Source

Miranda Sings: Selp Helf

Colleen Ballinger

Vimeo · 2015 · 74 min

A chaotic live variety show for the YouTube generation.

Colleen Ballinger brought her screeching, lipstick-smeared YouTube persona to the stage for a live show that leans heavily into the awkwardness of internet celebrity. Playing the aggressively untalented Miranda Sings, Ballinger uses the theatrical setting to translate her online videos into a live variety act. The performance is structured around terrible life advice, deliberately awful vocals, and highly interactive segments that cater directly to her teenage fanbase.

Filmed at the Moore Theatre in Seattle and released on Vimeo in late 2015, the special capitalized on the momentum of Ballinger’s bestselling parody book of the same name. The stage show features live assistance from Ballinger’s sister Rachel and her then-husband Joshua Evans. Together, they guide the crowd through tone-deaf vocal warmups, bad dance tutorials, and a dramatic reading of real hate mail sent to Miranda’s YouTube inbox.

The set list

3 bits

  1. Instructional dancing lessons

    Miranda teaches the audience how to dance using her inept, stiff physical style.

  2. Responding to hate mail

    Reading and reacting indignantly to negative social media comments and critics sent to her channel.

  3. Audience sing-alongs

    Involving the crowd in off-pitch musical performance routines.

How it plays

Tone
Satirical, comically inept, absurd, and empowering.
On stage
An egotistical, comically talentless, and inept alter ego characterized by smeared red lipstick, malapropisms, misspellings, and an arrogant, defiant attitude toward critics.
Pace
Offbeat and wacky, mixing off-pitch vocal delivery with stiff instructional dancing.
About
Self-help and life advice, Confidence and empowerment, Responding to critics and haters, Show business ambition

What the critics said

A Letterboxd review characterized the special as struggling to adapt Miranda Sings' charm to a longer format, calling the advice flimsy and the production weak, though her core fanbase of 'Mirfandas' embraced the sold-out live performance.

In the room: Energetic, passionate, and interactive crowd of dedicated fans at a sold-out theatre.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: themoviedb.org, allmovie.com, hollywoodreporter.com, broadwayworld.com, letterboxd.com, en.wikipedia.org.

Backstory

Tied to Colleen Ballinger's satirical internet persona Miranda Sings and sharing its title with her New York Times bestselling advice book 'Selp-Helf', featuring appearances by her sister Rachel Ballinger and husband Joshua Evans.

Details

Released
Taped
Moore Theatre, Seattle
Runtime
74 min
Where
Vimeo
Director
Jay Karas
Topics
After
Live ... Your Welcome (2019)

More from Colleen Ballinger

If you liked this