As someone who has been in the public eye for nearly twenty years, since she captured the nation’s hearts on The X Factor, Diana Vickers knows a thing or two about how women are judged.
‘People have opinions on you all the time: you’re frumpy and not pretty enough, or you’re too sexual, or too this or too that. I still find it happening today – we can’t get it right.’
We’re talking about this because judgment and misogyny are core subjects in the 34-year-old’s latest venture, the hotly anticipated new musical Coven at North London’s Kiln Theatre; in a sign of the buzz around it, it has already announced two extensions to its run before even opening.
It focuses on the infamous 1612 Pendle Witch Trials in Lancashire, when eight women, alongside two men, were executed for witchcraft – putting a spotlight on those victims who were so brutally silenced.
Diana jumped at the chance to be in Coven, in particular because she has quite a personal connection to the Trials.
‘I grew up near Pendle Hill, and I would go up there with my dad and my sister, and he would tell us stories about the ‘witches’; you could just feel the energy there. And I had a friend at school who was related to [one of the women] Alice Nutter. It’s the heartbeat of Lancashire.’
Beyond that, however, she says the story has obvious universal resonances because of all the ways in which women around the world are still condemned and denied agency. ‘It feels like we’ve moved on a lot from the 17th Century but actually we really haven’t – so many women don’t have a voice. [For example] we have a song called Care that speaks to the abortion bans that have been happening in America now.’
The show is very much an ensemble piece, with an all-female cast playing both men and women – in a reversal of the Shakespearean tradition, when men-only casts played both sexes.
In fact, Diana is starring as two members of the less-fair sex – Edmund, an 11-year-old boy who is manipulated into accusing people, and Covell, a police officer who is, in Diana’s words, ‘an absolute a**hole’. They’re parts in which Diana is happy to be drawing on her comedy skills, while she’s also relishing the physical transformation they require.
‘I’m used to playing more glamorous roles, but I’m honestly at the point in life now where I cannot wait to get stuck into something like this. I’ve got a beard, I’ve got a tache, I have a rash which I itch… I’m a bit gross, and I’m really excited about it!’
Growing up, becoming a performer was ‘never not an option’ for Diana, she says – though instead of going to drama school, as she was planning to, she auditioned for The X Factor and that changed everything. A contestant in 2008’s fifth series, when the show was at its absolute peak, she got to the semi-final with her strikingly ethereal voice and barefoot performances.
Some people have spoken up negatively about their experiences on the show in recent years, but Diana ‘has a lot of gratitude’ for what it did for her, even if inevitably it was not always fun being scrutinised at an ‘age when you’re still trying to figure out who the hell you are,’ she says.
‘There were definitely hard moments,’ she adds. ‘I’m pretty tough but I’ve had so many hard moments where people have written things about me where they’ve not been true, or they’ve been really harsh with their opinion.’
It’s also the case that it can be hard for talent show contestants after the first flush of celebrity dissipates, but Diana has thrived professionally by making her career multi-faceted. She had a number one single and album following The X Factor, before leaving her major label due to feeling ‘neglected’, as she puts it, and putting out a second LP on an indie.
But she has also made a name for herself as an actor, with recent credits including her star turn as Gwyneth Paltrow, of all people, in the West End musical parody I Wish You Well, retelling Gwyneth’s notorious ski trial in song and dance.
And that’s not all: she is part of a comedy duo, Ki and Dee, alongside her friend Chiara Hunter, while lately she has found a whole new audience with her gig as co-host of Metro’s Just Between Us podcast, in which she talks candidly about love, sex and relationships.
It has seen her discuss subjects like her decision to try a period of celibacy, while a recent revelation about a bizarre encounter she had with Leonardo DiCaprio made headlines. ‘I’m not an oversharer, but I do like to share things, and sometimes I’m a bit like ‘zip it Diana’,’ she laughs.
Now, too, she’s even making a return to pop after 12 years out of the game. This time around, her plan is to really have fun with a capital F: in August, she released Ice Cream, a jubilantly camp electro-disco bop that she described as a ‘musical love letter to the gays and the girlies’, while October 31 sees the release of a follow-up single, Pretty Boys.
As she describes it, it’s ‘a real banger’, with a video in which she is channelling her ‘inner Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct – unapologetic and completely in control.’
Does that reflect where she is in her life right now, I wonder? ‘I think so,’ she says.
‘I wouldn’t want to be any other age than I am now. I just feel like I’m the most confident I ever have been in myself, my ability, my skills, my looks and my sexuality, and as a woman.’
One thing seems clear: having come up through the entertainment industry machine, Diana is now firmly playing by her own rules.
Coven is at London’s Kiln Theatre from today (Friday, October 31) until January 17 2026, kilntheatre.com.
Pretty Boys is out now.
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