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‘I’ve done more cruises than Jane McDonald,” says Chris Dennis with a hoot. About 130 in all, he reckons, which his agent said surpassed McDonald, the most famous cruise ship singer there is. You won’t find Dennis’s name on any billing, though, and most of the thousands of people who have seen him perform won’t know it either. But they will know his alter ego, La Voix, a “northern powerhouse” of show tunes, sharp quips and bright crimson coiffure. Perhaps you’ve seen her slaying the runway on RuPaul’s Drag Race, dancing a pasodoble to Beethoven’s Fifth on Strictly, or appearing as a “spokesqueen” on the recent Eurovision. And now she’s about to sashay into her first role in a musical – as Miss Hannigan in Annie.
La Voix is an amalgam of the women Dennis knew growing up in Stockton-on-Tees: quick wit, warm heart, belter of a voice, and always in possession of a sparkly top for a night out. After 17 years of Drag Race on TV, we’ve seen the vast range of what drag can be, from high fashion to political to performance art. But La Voix is classic old school light entertainment. Who, I ask Dennis, are your comic influences? “Ken Dodd,” he says without a beat. “The terrible jokes that just make you laugh. Bang, bang, bang, joke, joke, joke.” Barry Humphries’ Dame Edna and Paul O’Grady’s Lily Savage are big influences, too. And when TV’s Loose Women asked La Voix about dancing with Strictly partner Aljaž Škorjanec, her reply – “To be flung round the room by a muscular Slovenian, you’re not going to say no, are you?” – was pure Victoria Wood.
“I wanted the ethos to be mainstream, family-friendly fun,” says Dennis. “I wanted it to make people feel good.” He even tries not to swear. In fact, it was David Emanuel – Princess Diana’s wedding dress designer and maker of a few frocks for La Voix – who told him to turn down the potty mouth. Dennis took the advice.
We’re chatting in a studio at the National Youth Theatre in London, where Dennis is being kept on his toes in Annie rehearsals. “I don’t want to be upstaged by an eight-year-old!” He’s in a cream tracksuit, with round cheeks, glowy skin, full of chat and having a full-circle moment. At 17, Dennis got into the National Youth Theatre: he remembers being in the very room we’re in now, dreaming of a future in musicals. Almost 30 years later, it’s happening. And Annie is a meaningful gig for him, because Miss Hannigan was one of O’Grady’s first musical roles, way back in 1998. That was the year Dennis came to London: he’d go past the theatre on the bus looking at O’Grady’s picture.
He has ended up in the right place but he’s taken an interesting route. Dennis’s first drag appearance was at a primary school talent show as Karen Carpenter, singing Top of the World. “It was nothing like Karen Carpenter,” he laughs. “I had denim hotpants on and a gold lamé blouse. Karen Carpenter would be mortified. I lip-synced and got some of the kids behind me doing all the moves. Everyone was just howling with laughter. I remember that laughter being really addictive, and thinking, ‘I want more of that. I can change the whole energy of the room.’ I’ve always chased that.” He doesn’t remember any negativity or snide comments. “Everyone thought it was fun – ‘Oh, that’s just Chris!’ I was always known as the cheeky kid.” His parents, both nurses, were unfailingly supportive.
After studying drama and musical theatre, Dennis worked as a stage makeup artist, once unknowingly aiding a jewellery heist after being booked to do “ageing” makeup on two men. This turned out to be a disguise for a £40m robbery. He also worked at renowned Soho club Madame JoJo’s, singing Shirley Bassey and Liza Minnelli. This was the beginning of La Voix, although he didn’t have the banter then. “I remember seeing all these other great drag queens who had done cabaret for years. The wit and comedy they had – I was in awe.”
He learned the craft of connecting with the audience, whether in Soho bars or on cruise ships full of retirees, where La Voix was heartily embraced. “It really felt as if I found my people on cruise ships,” says Dennis. “I’ve done swingers cruises, gay cruises, lesbian cruises, naturist cruises. You name it, I’ve done it.” How was the swingers cruise? “Well, I didn’t get involved. But there’s black tarpaulin over the windows in certain bars. You think, ‘Oh my God, it’s all going to happen in here!’”
He once took his mum on a gay cruise. “Six thousand gay men raving. She said, ‘I didn’t even realise there were that many gay men in the world!’” Dennis laughs – but he’s serious when he talks about how freeing those LGBTQ+ environments feel: “To experience life as a majority, not a minority, for a period.”
It’s no surprise that La Voix is also a longtime panto fixture. She’s Tinker Bell in Peter Pan in High Wycombe this year. “I love panto. I’ve done panto with Cilla Black, Mickey Rooney ...” What was Cilla like? “She was everything you want Cilla Black to be. She was a diva, you know, she didn’t socialise with us. But whenever we went over to the local bar, they’d say, ‘Oh, there’s £200 left behind the bar from Cilla.’”
Black herself had a bottle of champagne in her dressing room for every show, including matinees. “And we lost the last week of the pantomime because she wanted to go to Barbados with Cliff Richard.” Dennis acknowledges panto’s influence on British drag. “People grow up understanding men in dresses,” he says. “It’s not scary or strange. I think we have much more understanding of audience interaction and participation. Go to America and it can be a lot more cutting and cold.”
La Voix had a perfectly busy life before TV came calling, but her profile has since rocketed – and with it the pressure. “People expect your confidence to rise, too. But it doesn’t. There’s still a part of me that feels like a little boy inside, going, ‘Oh my gosh, this is huge!’ I do get really nervous – because the expectation is you’ll be funny, that you’ve got this. But what if I haven’t?”
Maybe La Voix’s got it for you. “You’ve hit the nail on the head!” says Dennis. “I always say, ‘I’m not sure if I can do this, but she’ll get me through.’ She’ll have the answer. And it really is like a complete switch in brain and personality.” Dennis also credits his fiance Luke, his longtime tour manager, with being a great backstage support.
Asked why he created La Voix, Dennis once said he just loved the glamour. If it had been more acceptable to be a glamorous man in Stockton in the 1990s, I suggest, perhaps he would have done a different kind of act. “Very, very true,” he says thoughtfully, then adds: “But at heart, I’m an actor who adores playing women.” What’s so appealing? “I think because women have had such an influence on my life. I was very close to my mum. I grew up in a care home [where his parents later worked], in which there were predominantly older women. All the teachers I remember fondly were also women.
“As a young gay guy, I didn’t relate to the masculinity of sports and of my dad. I found all that a bit scary. When we did the boxing ring cha-cha-cha for Strictly – famously my bad week – we went to an actual boxing ring with a boxing instructor and I found it daunting and triggering. I really didn’t enjoy that week.”
Still, Dennis does want to act as himself at some point. “I’d love to do a serious role as Chris and explore that.” But that can wait, now La Voix is having her moment. “I think there’s a really big place for La Voix as the next Dame Edna or Lily Savage,” says Dennis. “Not from a personal ambition thing. It’s just that I’m a big believer in light entertainment. I really want to see how far she can go. It’s almost as if it’s not me. It’s her – and I’m her biggest advocate.”
