Book, Music and Lyrics: Rachael Mailer
Director: Tara Noonan
As part of MT Pride Lab, Tania Azevedo’s season of queer musical theatre at King’s Head, Diary of a Gay Disaster has truly hit the ground running with its premiere production which is a resounding success with audiences.
The concept is fairly simple: new flatmate Ellis (Elly Fenton) is moving in with an existing pair of friends Mia (Talya Soames) and Finlay (Olivia O’Connor) when a secret diary falls from one of her moving boxes, becoming a catalyst for the trio to bond over their experiences as queer women. Admittedly, the exposition-heavy opening dialogue feels slightly like a shoehorn to slip into the real structure of the show, but intelligent comedy eases this set-up and, once Diary of a Gay Disaster hits its stride, it quickly becomes unstoppable.
A catalogue of pop-based musical numbers forms the backbone of the production, hitting every queer cliche on the head with wit and a catchy tune. With subtle differences in genre, between pop-rock, pop-punk, dance-pop and pop-ballads, the numbers never feel tiresome and are consistently enjoyable across the board. Fenton, Soames, and O’Connor deliver strong vocals and work together seamlessly as a unit; the harmonies shine through and moments of in-sync choreography are impressively tight. If there were a stand-out performer, it would be Soames who delivers some of the best one-liners and ambitious vocal riffs which humorously gets her called out as a ‘show-off’.
This self-aware, informal nature of Diary of a Gay Disaster is perhaps what grounds it as such a crowd-pleasing experience. Writer Rachael Mailer doesn’t necessarily say anything revolutionary about these tropes, nor is she trying to educate. What she does do, very successfully under the direction of Tara Noonan, is provide a space for queer audiences to acknowledge, mock, subvert and celebrate the generalised preconceptions people place upon womxn in the community.
Diary of a Gay Disaster starts out great and ends as a triumph. With show-stopping laughs, an incredible score, and a feel-good atmosphere, this is the most fun hour you can have in a theatre right now. Having already sold-out before it even opened, this is definitely the kind of hit show audiences should be queuing up for in hopes of a return ticket.
Runs until 23 July 2023