The Diana Mixtape
- Jenny Daniel
- 6 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Christopher D Clegg
Tuckshop/Walport Productions
Lowry, Salford
August 19-21, 2025; 90mins (no interval)
Five drag Dianas.
Let me repeat that. Five international drag Dianas. On stage. At once. And it works.
The Diana Mixtape is a drag show par excellence, with a sparkling cast. For anyone familiar with the Ru Paul world, the five queens are to die for: from Australia, Courtney Act; our favourite Canada queen Priyanka; Scotttish-Texan Rose, and our very own Drag Race UK contestants, Kitty Scott-Claus and Divina Di Campo (my two favourites).
Anyone around in the 1980s (and some of these queens were) will tell you that Diana’s media presence was perhaps epic enough to be represented by a full-scale drag show with five queens serving us the beloved princess. When Diana was famously asked if she thought she’d ever be Queen, perhaps she underestimated what was to come...
This is my second royal musical visit to the Lowry in a fortnight (Anne Reid as the late Queen centre stage in By Royal Appointment. see here). This time it was - gasp! - Hollywood musical legend and incredible vocalist Keala Settle who took on the monarch, in a very different interpretation. I particularly enjoyed the song Mother in which she admonishes Prince Charles "I am your mother, listen to me…" etc. By Royal Appointment gave us the Queen through "a queer lens" of dress design. However queer that lens might have been, it was significantly out-queered by this show.
Dancing boys swirl around serving us royal courtiers, bodyguards, paparazzi and other members of the entourage; meanwhile the Dianas create what otherwise might be an internal monologue by being in a state of constant interaction with one another, also directly addressing the audience. We could say that Diana as a media persona certainly had the kind of presence that now has to be recreated by a entire ensemble.
Charles (Noel Sullivan) is inspired. Camilla (Lucinda Lawrence) is at first the arch-villain ‘CPB’, then the unfortunate, or ‘The One That Got Away’ - though from our heroine’s perspective never really far enough. Lawrence gives a masterclass in how to capture a personality in comedy, whist appearing in jodhpurs throughout. "Throughout" except during the sex scene, Let’s Get Physical. Given that these real-life individuals are now our King and Queen, I wondered about the legality of depicting them in their unmentionables, and in such a state of union. High treason, perhaps? Maybe just low-brow treason and we’ll all be fine. I do hope so.
The nature of drag queens is that each one is unique. Some are excellent singers, others wonderful dancers or actors. Overall Divina and Kitty come across as prime Diana, in inflection and action, but each queen brings their own unique flavour of Di to the party.
There are sad moment too. When Di is fitted for her famous Emmanuel wedding dress, we see the projected photo of the real bride to be on the gown: a stark reminder within this royal pantomime that there was a real person at the centre of the story. And when she tells us of a planned trip with new beau Dodi to Paris, and says she doesn’t fancy it, and might call it off, we suddenly wish that she would. It’s a tease that creates a moment of pure pathos when we remember the tragedy that was to come.
So is this the perfect Diana entertainment? Not quite. The show was an intimate cabaret act in its last incarnation in London, and a few teething issues came across in the upscaling to a large theatre with the pressures of time, lights, sound levels and everything else that involves. We couldn’t always hear every word and it was a shame because I bet they were hilarious. But we forgive them because when you’re Diana, the sheer level of fabulousness is enough.
So how many stars can I give it without being thrown in the tower? I’ll settle on four with the first night glitches, but with the potential of five to come, for five queens serving us charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent (as Ru would have it) but also serving us pure Princess.
More info and tickets here
