Lady Christina
Lady Christina was initially born out of second-hand shops and costumes that Manchester Metropolitan University Drama Society would not notice were missing.
As with any child it took a while till her identity formed and she decided who she wanted to be. Also as with any child, when she dressed up and put on make-up she could be someone other than who she was and was liberated from her immediate surroundings.
When she first emerged, she was just Chris in women’s clothes. When she first went on stage she was just a collection of cheap jokes and borrowed references drawing on the likes of Julian Clary and gay stereotypes from the 70s and 80s.
The first performance made her nervous before and made her feel like a failure afterwards. Unable to face other drag artists on the same bill, she felt as if she had insulted them and their trade by thinking it was easy.
In London her creator sought out other drag artists, trying to find out more about them, how they got their characters, why they did it, and how they developed their act and their material. He studied them meticulously, not to copy their acts but to copy and draw on their process to create his own invention and get the character who would be saying the lines and singing the songs.
Christina Mark 2 debuted in the Vauxhall Tavern on a Sunday evening in March 1999, telling people that ‘Hit me baby one more time’ was not something the women of Blackburn sang to their husbands when they got back from the pub, and that actually they were far classier than anyone in the South could ever know. It was pandering to stereotypes and playing to them, but it worked and a character emerged.
Christina Mark 2 ended shortly after Chris found out his mother had cancer and went to see her. She only made a few appearances after that time, although she did do some of her routine to Chris’ mum, who smiled politely, laughed a bit but maybe didn’t enjoy it as much as Chris/Christina hoped.
After the diagnosis switched to terminal, Christina Mark 2 left the London stage permanently. The appearances before Joan became more about Northern life as lived rather than Northern life laid on for the delights of a Southern audience. As someone who never really got Londoners, Joan liked her more. She also provided a temporary respite to her, a moment when her illness was not taking her life in a brutal manner. Joan joined in the conversations and the two swapped anecdotes and stories, which in Joan’s case were real. As they chatted, Christina did Joan’s make-up to hide what life was doing to her.
Something of Christina from those conversations made it into, or even became, Christina Mark 3 when she appeared on a Salford stage in December 2002. But she could not be from where she was, she had to be a visitor, she had to be someone who belonged somewhere better. Her cover story was that she was a lady from the south who had fallen on hard times and had to come back to the council house where her Aunt Madge had lived for all her life. She was appalled by the squalor she saw but determined to lift people out of it by telling them what they were doing wrong along with anecdotes of her wonderful life before coming North.
Her act was fuelled by the things Chris observed, by all the things and people that were frustrating him but that he would never want to say anything about. She could be brash and mouthy without fear of comeback, she could turn people and situations into caricatures and really have fun. She could be wicked and bad so that Chris never had to be. She was Hyde to his Jekyll, but the two could live in perfect harmony and didn’t want to kill each other.
Lady Christina only lives in her clothes. When the clothes come off she disappears. Lady Christina lives on the stage and in the green rooms or toilets where she has to get dressed before coming on stage or going home.
She makes guests appearances at Chris’ house when he puts her clothes on and lets go of himself to let her voice emerge and try out new material.
She would never do Drag Race or anything like it. Christina believes in illusion. Her audience should never see her off the stage or out of her clothes, because Christina does not exist off the stage and out of her clothes.
Christina has a reasonable following. She wishes it was bigger but knows that this is the way it is for most drag artists. Drag may be bigger than it was when she was starting out, but the mainstream remains elusive for most artists. The only real differences are that more straight people know about drag artists and come along to see them and expect to see the glossy TV version. Christina is one of the old school but even she’s made some changes to her act to respond to the new kids and the TV version of drag.
As with any child it took a while till her identity formed and she decided who she wanted to be. Also as with any child, when she dressed up and put on make-up she could be someone other than who she was and was liberated from her immediate surroundings.
When she first emerged, she was just Chris in women’s clothes. When she first went on stage she was just a collection of cheap jokes and borrowed references drawing on the likes of Julian Clary and gay stereotypes from the 70s and 80s.
The first performance made her nervous before and made her feel like a failure afterwards. Unable to face other drag artists on the same bill, she felt as if she had insulted them and their trade by thinking it was easy.
In London her creator sought out other drag artists, trying to find out more about them, how they got their characters, why they did it, and how they developed their act and their material. He studied them meticulously, not to copy their acts but to copy and draw on their process to create his own invention and get the character who would be saying the lines and singing the songs.
Christina Mark 2 debuted in the Vauxhall Tavern on a Sunday evening in March 1999, telling people that ‘Hit me baby one more time’ was not something the women of Blackburn sang to their husbands when they got back from the pub, and that actually they were far classier than anyone in the South could ever know. It was pandering to stereotypes and playing to them, but it worked and a character emerged.
Christina Mark 2 ended shortly after Chris found out his mother had cancer and went to see her. She only made a few appearances after that time, although she did do some of her routine to Chris’ mum, who smiled politely, laughed a bit but maybe didn’t enjoy it as much as Chris/Christina hoped.
After the diagnosis switched to terminal, Christina Mark 2 left the London stage permanently. The appearances before Joan became more about Northern life as lived rather than Northern life laid on for the delights of a Southern audience. As someone who never really got Londoners, Joan liked her more. She also provided a temporary respite to her, a moment when her illness was not taking her life in a brutal manner. Joan joined in the conversations and the two swapped anecdotes and stories, which in Joan’s case were real. As they chatted, Christina did Joan’s make-up to hide what life was doing to her.
Something of Christina from those conversations made it into, or even became, Christina Mark 3 when she appeared on a Salford stage in December 2002. But she could not be from where she was, she had to be a visitor, she had to be someone who belonged somewhere better. Her cover story was that she was a lady from the south who had fallen on hard times and had to come back to the council house where her Aunt Madge had lived for all her life. She was appalled by the squalor she saw but determined to lift people out of it by telling them what they were doing wrong along with anecdotes of her wonderful life before coming North.
Her act was fuelled by the things Chris observed, by all the things and people that were frustrating him but that he would never want to say anything about. She could be brash and mouthy without fear of comeback, she could turn people and situations into caricatures and really have fun. She could be wicked and bad so that Chris never had to be. She was Hyde to his Jekyll, but the two could live in perfect harmony and didn’t want to kill each other.
Lady Christina only lives in her clothes. When the clothes come off she disappears. Lady Christina lives on the stage and in the green rooms or toilets where she has to get dressed before coming on stage or going home.
She makes guests appearances at Chris’ house when he puts her clothes on and lets go of himself to let her voice emerge and try out new material.
She would never do Drag Race or anything like it. Christina believes in illusion. Her audience should never see her off the stage or out of her clothes, because Christina does not exist off the stage and out of her clothes.
Christina has a reasonable following. She wishes it was bigger but knows that this is the way it is for most drag artists. Drag may be bigger than it was when she was starting out, but the mainstream remains elusive for most artists. The only real differences are that more straight people know about drag artists and come along to see them and expect to see the glossy TV version. Christina is one of the old school but even she’s made some changes to her act to respond to the new kids and the TV version of drag.
