{"id":103127,"date":"2025-08-29T00:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T00:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/103127\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T00:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T00:13:07","slug":"dear-viv-review-this-fascinating-tribute-to-the-vivienne-is-astonishingly-candid-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/103127\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Viv review \u2013 this fascinating tribute to The Vivienne is astonishingly candid | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vivienne was well on her way to becoming the 21st century\u2019s answer to Lily Savage or Dame Edna Everage. Comically gifted and with a very modern mastery of makeup \u2013 there was nothing remotely slapdash about Viv\u2019s transformative glam \u2013 she won the first UK edition of RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race in 2019<\/a>, before parlaying her victory into appearances on Dancing on Ice, Celebrity Hunted and Emmerdale. By 2024, she was living the dream, wowing as the Wicked Witch of the West in Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s The Wizard of Oz.<\/p>\n

But James Lee Williams never got the chance to turn his status as a fledgling household name into proper cultural ubiquity: in January of this year, he died from cardio-respiratory arrest<\/a>, a result of ketamine consumption. He was 32.<\/p>\n

This tribute to Williams \u2013 who was mostly called Viv by friends and James by family, using female and male pronouns respectively \u2013 arrives a mere eight months later. God knows how hard it must have been for his parents to discuss his death in public so soon afterwards. \u201cDid I say how proud I was?\u201d his mum panically asks Williams\u2019 sister off camera at one point. To conclude this documentary, those who were close to the artist \u2013 including his young niece \u2013 are asked to write him an imaginary letter. It is an utterly heart-wrenching device, and one that seems slightly exploitative in the context of such raw grief.<\/p>\n

Before then, however, Dear Viv concerns itself with providing a lively, insightful and incredibly interesting account of Williams as a man and an entertainer. His reality background means there is copious footage of him discussing his life, interspersed here with testimony from family, friends and fellow queens alongside clips from early vlogs. We hear how he felt comfortable enough to come out as gay aged 14 at his north Wales private school, where he was an inveterate mischief-maker; his father, who worked there, recalls his attention-seeking antics with weary amusement. The same year, a Cher-induced internet wormhole led him to drag and, at 16, he moved to Liverpool by himself, finding his feet in the city\u2019s club scene and acquiring the Vivienne Westwood fixation that produced his moniker. Later, a stint in Gran Canaria helped him finesse his raucous, accessible and very British act \u2013 \u201cthat old school rough and ready drag but with the polished look\u201d as his friend and colleague Michael Marouli<\/a> puts it.<\/p>\n

Not long afterwards, his Drag Race audition tape \u2013 featuring impressions of Donald Trump, Cilla Black, Cher, Ab Fab\u2019s Patsy Stone, Jennifer Coolidge<\/a> and Kim Woodburn<\/a> \u2013 won him a place on the lineup; his comic chops won him the series and many friends besides, especially Baga Chipz<\/a>, who describes the pair as \u201ca couple of fat bastards\u201d (fellow queen Cheryl Hole<\/a> affectionately likens them to Statler and Waldorf<\/a> from the Muppets). Later Williams appeared on Drag Race All Stars<\/a> \u2013 a queen of queens competition involving the franchise\u2019s best contestants. Then, with some effort \u2013 Williams\u2019 manager Simon Jones mourns the post-Savage evisceration of drag from the mainstream \u2013 he made inroads into primetime fare: he hoped his participation on Dancing on Ice would prove drag queens were \u201cnothing to be feared\u201d.<\/p>\n

Off stage and screen, things weren\u2019t quite so rosy. Williams arrived in Liverpool with an anti-drug attitude, but his new social circle soon normalised extreme partying. Post-performance comedowns cemented his dependence; he spent four years as a functioning ketamine addict \u2013 able to continue with life while under the influence and to hide it from his family. He went to Spain to break the cycle and by Drag<\/a> Race his narrative was one of hard-won sobriety.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t all. In an archive interview, Williams alludes to the intense loneliness he experienced before meeting his husband David, who \u201cgave him something to live for\u201d (they split up in 2023, for reasons not covered in the documentary ). His profession was a salve and a stress of its own \u2013 he was racked with insecurity on All Stars, feeling like \u201cthe runt of the litter\u201d amid the US queens. Fascinatingly, we hear how being a drag queen bifurcated his very selfhood: he neglected James, spending all his money on clothes for The Vivienne and often wanting to lose himself in his imperious, invulnerable creation. It\u2019s rare to hear this kind of candid deconstruction of drag, earnestness being anathema to camp. \u201cAs queer people we often hide from emotions,\u201d says Hole, who explains how persecution can lead to emotional repression. We also witness Chipz explaining how his drag alter ego helps him to escape himself.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t get similar insight into Williams\u2019 relapse. Jones knew the performer was taking ketamine again (his family didn\u2019t) and had arranged for counselling and therapy. Dear Viv is not presumptuous \u2013 or reductive \u2013 enough to impose a simple narrative on his death. Instead, it offers a warm and nuanced portrait of an artist as the giver of great joy \u2013 and of a man whose calling both allayed and intensified his vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n