Dennis the Menace

Denise the Menace costume designed and worn by Ellie Diamond for an appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. Acquired by Leisure and Culture Dundee in 2021 with a grant of £3,000 from the National Fund for Acquisitions, funded by the Scottish Government.

© Dundee Art Galleries and Museums, DC Thomson & Co Ltd. Image by GSR Photographic

To celebrate the 80th birthday of Beano in 2018, The McManus gave the best present it could and became … The McMenace. It seems only fitting that the museum continues to earn its stripes from Beano’s most cherished wild child. But in 2020 there was a new kid on the block …

Red and black stripes? Check!

Mad mop of black hair? Check!

A trusty sidekick in the form of a black-and-white dog? Check!

Move over Dennis because Ellie Diamond is serving up some Denise realness.

Dundee’s very own drag queen, Ellie Diamond, sashayed onto screens in the first episode of the second series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK as Denise the Menace. In response to the challenge ‘Queen of Your Home Town’, Ellie wanted to celebrate Dundee’s rich history through her love of comics. It really shouldn’t come as any surprise that we were very keen to acquire the outfit and, thanks to the National Fund for Acquisitions, we successfully purchased it from Ellie.

Ellie made the outfit herself from material bartered from a local haberdashery (Dennis would be proud). Not able to find an appropriate Gnasher, she spray-painted a white dog and glued in some joke-shop teeth (again a move that her name-sake would wholeheartedly approve).

But beyond the fun of the acquisition, on a deeper level it allowed the museum to acquire and represent an area of the collection that had not previously been openly showcased in our history exhibits – LGBTQ+ voices and experiences. Thanks to funding from Museums Galleries Scotland, we were able to purchase a bespoke mannequin to display the outfit in all its glory. We fully acknowledge that this is just one element in the huge rainbow of LGBTQ+ collecting and that we have a lot more to do to make our displays more inclusive and representative of our City. But as a first step, we think we’ve earned a coveted RuPeter badge on our stripes.