When Rachael Mailer posted a clip of their comedy song Is she queer or just a hipster? online, they had no idea it would strike such a chord with the LGBT community, going viral overnight. Over a year on, they’ve just completed the third run of their show Diary of a Gay Disaster, and have plans to release a twelve-track full cast recording soon. We caught up with Rachael to discuss how lesbian culture has evolved in the two years since they started writing the show, why we need more sapphic comedies, and what it’s like to play to an audience with “more mullets than men”.
A comedy writer by training, Rachael came up with the idea for their musical when they identified a “severe lack” of funny media about lesbians. “It had got to a place where a lot of media featuring gay men, for example, is funny and flamboyant…and stories that centred women and AFAB (Assigned Female at Birth) people seemed to not get as much space for that. I guess because maybe we’re not expected to be funny?”.
Rachael felt this representation didn’t tally with their own experiences with their friends, preferring to laugh their way through the sometimes painful experience of being queer. “I wanted to make a space for our community where we were allowed to just make light of it, to make it all a joke and be silly with it, because it doesn’t have to be this deep emotional dramatic thing all the time.”
Rachael plays Ellis, a 24-year-old queer woman who begins the show thinking she is entirely comfortable with her sexuality, before two ‘expert dyke angels’ turn up to read her diary and encourage her to reflect on past experiences. In a fast-paced 70 minutes, the actors cover everything from first crushes to first breakups, via coming out and gender identity – all interspersed with genre-bending musical numbers.
Understandably, Rachael says it hasn’t always been easy to keep this character separate from the real Rachael. They credit their director, Robyn Lexi, with ensuring the rehearsal room never gets too personal. “The more tough subjects we cover in the play, the easier it is to slip into your own experiences and your own feelings about these subjects. But it’s about a balance, we had a lot of sessions in rehearsal when we would delve into our own experiences and see how we could bring these to our characters. But I think it gets to a point where you also have to protect yourself…It’s important to remember that we’re telling a story.”
The show first premiered at the King’s Head Theatre in July 2023, and Rachael has observed a change in its reception since this time. “I think people are releasing the issue with the only queer stories existing being tragedies – it puts a very clear message out to those people that that’s what their lives are.”
“It’s a supply and demand thing, the more joyful media that’s created and the better it does, the more people realise that actually people want that. It’s why things like Heartstopper have been so successful, just to be able to be in a space where queerness is normalised.”
When they first started pitching the show to theatres and production companies, the response would often be that it was “too niche” and that it “alienates too much of a potential audience”. Essentially, they were told that only queer people would watch a show about lesbians – and that meant it shouldn’t be put on. Rachael thinks this is “a harmful message to put out into the world.”
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“A story is a story, people should be able to enjoy a story that they can’t personally relate to potentially even more…We stayed true to ourselves and didn’t take on that feedback because we believed it could be enjoyed by everyone.”
And that has certainly proved true if audience feedback Rachael has received is anything to go by. The team was approached by straight women and gay men, who told them how much they enjoyed the show and how much they had learned.
Towards the end of the show, the non-binary character confronts the other two about their use of gendered language throughout. Rachael says this moment came to them during a writing exercise they performed on all first drafts, which was to read them back from the perspective of each character.
“It was only then that I realised – four of the songs literally have the word ‘girl’ in the title…I don’t think it would have felt authentic for that character to have gone through that whole show and never have had that thought…That character would be feeling really conflicted because they do understand and they can relate, however, the gender identity that they’re currently expressing and feeling within themselves doesn’t feel like it has a place in that world.
“I want to write authentically, and write in a way that sounds like real people, but real people are flawed. They use language that isn’t always inclusive to certain groups…I wanted [the other] characters to have that realisation.”
We couldn’t let Rachael leave without giving us some recommendations for finding queer joy in London, now that Diary of a Gay Disaster is no longer running. Inclusive queer dance parties run by Pussy Palace, Gal Pals, Butch Please and Queer Houseparty were their top picks for meeting other people in the community.
This kind of collective experience is what they wanted to create through their show. “When you make someone laugh and also think, ‘Oh my god that’s so true’, they simultaneously feel validated in the way they felt about it and like they’ve connected with you because you’ve felt it too and you can laugh about it together. The feeling is, ‘Yeh it sucked, but because I feel seen and validated in a community, I feel ok about it and I feel like I can face tomorrow’.”
Follow their Instagram above to keep up with Rachael and the Diary of a Gay Disaster team. They are currently seeking nominations for the What’sOnStage awards, including Best Musical and Best Studio Production.
Guest writer: Flora is a freelance journalist based In London, with a particular interest in Gen Z, theatre and queer culture. She has written about student protest movements, Edinburgh Fringe shows, and (of course) brat summer. She is currently studying for an MA in Newspaper Journalism at City, University of London.
