The Diana Mixtape: quick links
The Diana Mixtape opened in the West End this week. This gloriously campy musical is an unabashed love letter to the People’s Princess featuring songs by pop music royalty. This really is ‘the gig of a lifetime’ – Diana’s lifetime, in fact.
Featuring music from the era’s biggest names including Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, and Ariana Grande, this is a musical that wears its heart on its sleeve. And why have just one Princess Di when you can have five?
The Diana Mixtape: five drag queens
On stage here, five of the most acclaimed drag queens from around the world strut their stuff as they revisit the sorry tale of Lady Diana Spencer and her Prince Charming. We all know the story – the schoolgirl crush, the uncomfortable courtship, the wedding nerves, the pressure of the Family Firm, the other woman, the divorce and the ultimate tragic ending.
The show’s creator and director Christopher D Clegg takes the key facts of Diana’s life, right up to that ill-fated trip to Paris with Dodi Fayed and gives us a colourful and candid musical tribute. At the end of the show, the queens say ‘Diana would have f***ing loved to have a drag show about her!’ and who can argue with that?
The Diana Mixtape: seriously good fun
Mixtape is seriously good fun. It’s a high-energy jukebox musical that doesn’t try to take itself too seriously. The five leads are brilliant, each playing Diana, both individually and together. They are all international stars in their own right, mainly best known from Ru Paul’s Drag Race. It’s well worth the ticket price just to see Courtney Act, Divina De Campo, Priyanka, Kitty Scott-Claus, and Rosé on stage.
They’re all great, but the two stand-outs for this reviewer were Courtney Act, for her strength and sass (and yes, I’m Australian, so maybe I’m biased!) and Priyanka with her illuminating stage presence. They sing, they dance, they act, but basically this is a late-night show at your favourite dive bar tied together with the loose narrative thread of Diana’s life story.
American actress Keala Settle is a real crowd favourite but she only has a small role, doing a few numbers as Queen Elizabeth. Her rendition of ‘Commander’ is one of the show’s highlights. A real surprise is Lucinda Lawrence as ‘the other woman’. Currently best-known as the narrator on BBC 1’s Garden Rescue, Lawrence is hilarious as Camilla Parker Bowles and seduces Prince Charles with obvious enthusiasm.
Noel Sullivan plays Charles with the usual comedic stiff-upper-lip affectation of a man who still needs his nanny. The ‘other men’ in the story, Andrew Parker Bowles and James Hewitt get small mentions. Diana’s boys, William and Harry, are barely there in the script and don’t appear at all. The ensemble of five dancers gives it their best, with choreography by Taz Hoesli, but the routines still look a little under-done.
The staging is fairly basic throughout with few props to get in the way but there is some good video to set the scene, designed by Adam Nightingale and Christopher D Clegg. The wedding dress sequence, played smoothly by Rosé, is a gem. And there are many of Diana’s iconic looks celebrated here, especially the infamous black ‘revenge dress’, with costumes by River Smith.
Set down in the depths of Here at Outernet, many floors below Tottenham Court Road, the five queens hold court on a black-box stage. Arranged cabaret style, the best seats are the VIP tables around the stage and the sovereign seats on each side. The Princess Pit allows you to dance and party (and have easy access to the bar and loos) but it can be more difficult to see what’s happening on stage.
The Diana Mixtape: mutiple audio problems
There were a few problems at this performance with a woeful sound mix, multiple audio problems, and missed cues. The music often overwhelms the dialogue, which undermines the show as a biopic. And that’s really the problem with Mixtape – it doesn’t seem to know whether it’s a cabaret show, a night at your favourite drag club, or a more serious biopic musical. It even has moments of panto, especially when the audience join together to boo at Camilla.
The show really needs more emotional depth to sustain the audience through a full 90 minutes. Even though we all know the storyline, we still need to feel some emotional connection with the performers. The pacing and energy levels are a problem too with the show falling a little flat in some moments. Overall, the show just feels a little unfinished.
Despite these flaws, The Diana Mixtape is a funny, affectionate, trashy, flashy, glittery love letter to the ‘queen of people’s hearts’. The show’s not perfect but it certainly has a big heart. Following the warm standing ovation at this performance, the very enthusiastic person next to me said ‘I loved it! I want to come back tomorrow!’ So take her advice and book a ticket while you can.
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The Diana Mixtape will be performed at Here at Outernet until 10 August then touring to the Lowry, Salford, from 19-21 August 2025.
