Susan Boyle: To make-over or not to make-over?

"...Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl..."

If you are on the internet right now, and all signs point to the fact that you probably are, then you have no business not knowing exactly who Susan Boyle is.

The dowdy 47-year-old Scot’s appearance (in more ways than one) on Britain’s Got Talent has become a sensation with over 100 million views of her performance on Youtube (Embedding of the video has been disabled, so you'll have to go there to see it), with even the US jumping on the bandwagon.

Susan, you see, has big unkempt hair, equally big unkempt eyebrows, wears nanna dresses and dared to gyrate her hips on stage having already announced she had never been kissed.

The tease!

It goes without saying that in normal life middle-aged ladies with bad hair can’t sing.

Just look at Madonna.

So imagine Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan’s collective horror when she started belting out “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables (perhaps they prefer “Master Of The House”?) and it sounded rather good.

Simon’s eyes lit up, realising he had just found the biggest novelty hit since Pop Idol’s Gareth “I can’t speak without stuttering but I can sing like an angel!” Gates, and you could almost see the cogs in his brain working as he imagined himself bathing in even more cash, and some time soon after wondered, “Do I pluck this woman to within an inch of her life, or leave her looking like Hagrid?”

Is her charm soley based on the fact that she can sing AND has bad eyebrows?

Simon knows that if he pushes her out now as-is he will make a killing (and you can bet he has already picked out the tracks for her new album and she will be in the studio before the BGT finale airs), but as a novelty act – which, let’s be honest, she will be in such a case – she is unlikely to go beyond a second album.

As an unemployed 47-year-old she will probably be quite happy to take her millions o’ quid back to her village and live the rest of her life with acclaim and the occasional appearance on I Love The ’00s specials.

But by sprucing her up, Simon risks having her loving public seeing her as a sell-out and turning on her, and that is far too big a risk to take, especially after Susan herself spoke out on the subject.

“Maybe I’ll consider a makeover later on,” she told The Times last week, leaving the door open to a new look for her second album. “For now I’m happy the way I am – short and plump. I would not go in for Botox or anything like that. I’m content with the way I look. What’s wrong with looking like Susan Boyle? What’s the matter with that?”

Still, Simon could always get a reality TV crew to start following her around immediately (and if he was a thinker he would) and it could all finish up with the best extreme makeover of all time!

Perhaps following her "secret" chats with Song/BMG, Susan has had a slight change of tune.

“I will need to sort out my dress sense and my weight,” she has now pipped to the Mirror. It wasn’t until I saw myself on TV that I realised how frumpy I was. It’s not a big thing – it doesn’t worry me too much – but I will be doing a bit more exercise to help me sort it out … I just want to look nice, and smart.”

Judging from their internet output a hell of a lot of Americans are desperate for her to be taken to with scalpels and tweezers (Susan Boyle: Bring On The Makeover! shouts E! Online, while USA Today pretends their beauty bias comes from readers; Debate: Should Susan Boyle get a makeover?), while the British like their new hero frumpy.

The UK tabloids are already splashing their front pages with mock-horror after Boyley dared to step out in a – shock! – leather jacket! “And you said you wouldn't change Susan Boyle” cries the Daily Mail.

"I hear this is what all the kids are wearing!"

What a load of old tosh.

Let’s be honest, at this stage nobody knows how Susan will handle the fame game, when it comes to looks or anything else. How will she deal with paps at her front door? And hangers-on offering her gak? We could very well be looking at the next Lindsay Lohan!

Stay tuned.

Scott Keenan

Do my eyebrows look big in this? o’clock