As a long time fan of Ru Paul’s Drag Race I was really excited to get the chance to head to the Royal Concert Hall to see the girls from series 2 of the UK version of the show perform, and it’s clear I wasn’t alone as there was hardly an empty seat in the house.
The entire roster of series 2 queens were on hand including overall winner Lawrence Chaney, who edged out Bimini Bon-Boulash and Tacey in the final, plus Cherry Valentine, Ellie Diamond, Ginny Lemon, Joe Black, Sister Sister, Tia Coffee, Veronica Green, A’Whora & Asttina Mandella.
Ginny Lemon kicked things off and created the mood for the night, hitting the stage in a crocheted dress and matching kicks and giving the crowd plenty to laugh about, earning a huge cheers with a shout of “F*ck the Tories” – it’s fair to say she left the stage having earned at least one new fan.
Joe Black gave us an amazing cabaret performance supported by some amazing backing dancers who were clearly having the time of their lives judging by their faces throughout the set.
The first half seemed to be over all too soon but things soon got going again as the second half kicked off with Sister Sister bringing her amazing energy to the stage, followed by Nottingham born star A’Whora, who took us back to the 90’s with classics such as Alice Deejay and Ultra Nate – and dressed in a stunning neon outfit.
Ellie Diamond perhaps stole the entire show with her Cat in The Hat number while Tayce had, without a doubt, the raunchiest performance of the evening, though it wasn’t without class. Tia Coffee made the most of the stage and back up dancers with a hugely enjoyable performance.
Rounding the night off Season 2 winner Lawrence Cheney just oozed energy on stage and has such an incredibly infectious personality that shows why she snatched the crown.
I thought it was great that the queens performed not only in the order of their elimination but also against the queen who made them “sashay away” at the end, though I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t get the full version of ‘Bing Bang Bong’ which became something of a national earworm during last year.
On a negative note it was a shame that not all the queens got the same amount of stage time and the evening was somewhat ruined by the group that were sitting behind us that were loudly chatting throughout the show, somewhat distracting from what was happening on stage.
All in all though it was a fantastic evening with some brilliant performances, and it was really great to see some performers sing live on stage. The queens all clearly love doing what they do and are extremely good at doing it.
While the Season 2 tour has completely sold out, the Series 3 tour will be in Nottingham on September 4 2022 – for more information and tickets click here.
The Official Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK: Series 2 tour took place at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall on Tuesday 8 February 2022.
Review by Geri Patterson – follow on Twitter
