Royal Vauxhall

Kenny Everett, Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana walk into a bar. That’s the premise for this new musical by Desmond O’Connor – and the bar they walk into is the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The grade II listed building, just across the road from MI6 headquarters in London, has hosted innumerable drag and cabaret acts over the years and is one of London’s most iconic gay pubs. 

With speculation mounting about Everett’s sexuality, Lady Di fed up of the intense press scrutiny, and Mercury reeling after finding out he’s HIV positive, the trio decide they need a night out. Off they trot, in ridiculous disguises, to the Royal Vauxhall. 

O’Connor’s songs tend to start as barely veiled pastiches of famous numbers by, among others, Queen and David Bowie. But each song finds its own feet, helped along by excellent lyrics, and those that aren’t indebted to existing hits are jaunty, catchy numbers in their own right.

There’s a challenge, of course, in playing three of the most famous people Britain has ever seen and, while Tom Giles’s Freddie is sassy and charismatic and Sarah Louise-Young’s Diana captures some of the grace that made her so beloved, it’s Matthew Jones’s performance that steals it. One half of performance duo Frisky and Mannish, his Kenny Everett is astonishingly accurate. He’s got the skinny, wriggling body, desperate to slip its own skin. He dips in and out of Everett’s creations at a rate of knots. It’s uncanny.

It isn’t all frivolity, though. O’Connor has picked three desperately sad, deeply conflicted people to show how necessary places like the Royal Vauxhall were (still are) in the wake of AIDS and Section 28. Sure it’s good fun, but this new musical is unexpectedly moving too.