Drag in the UK: What’s the Tee?

For ten years, RuPaul’s Drag Race has been serving lewks, lip-syncs and legends. While the earlier seasons gave us icons like Sharon Needles (S4) and Raja (S3), the subsequent series gave us slightly more modern, edgier queens – the likes of Sasha Velour (S9) and Aquaria (S10). Each season has been spectacularly unique and raw –season 11 especially, that’s seen the return of “Miss Vanjieeeee”, the victim of elimination, in season 10’s first episode. I jumped on the bandwagon two years ago, when I popped by a friend’s who’d been binging all day. “It’s like America’s Next Top Model, but for drag queens,” she said.

Three episodes later and my addiction was birthed. It was indeed Alyssa Edward’s tongue pop, Detox’s wacky chin movements in lip-syncs and Alaska’s nasal “hi-eee!” that had me hooked.

But I’m not the only Alice who’s fallen down the Drag Race rabbit hole – apparently, so has the rest of the world. In the last four years, the show has gotten more and more popular. Season 10, which aired last year, hit an all-time high with 469,000 viewers in the 18 - 49 demo, making it the most-watched season in Drag Race herstory.

And Halle-loo! Mother Ru has made the remarkable decision to bring the sensation to the UK! With the announcement of the show, it seems as though the UK is also home to some of the most talented and fierce queens. In fact, London and Manchester are known for being the two main cities for the hottest drag scenes, here in Britain. I wanted to find out more about why they chose to start the competition in the UK, over any other country. Is the drag scene here on a larger scale than we thought?

Luke Dawe - drag name Baby Face - is a 20-year-old London-based student, drag queen, and musician. After watching Adore Delano (S6) encompass everything it means to be a “drag popstar”, Luke knew it was “what he was meant to be doing.” Identifying as gender fluid, he explains that drag gives him a means of “expressing his femininity.”

“It’s also a platform for me to create and perform my music - the two go hand in hand for me,” he says. Luke will be graduating this summer with a degree in English Literature and hopes to go into drag and music full time. “In London, there’s very much a focus on the performance aspect of drag, which is traditionally the case with British drag. There is also more of a club-based scene that’s more visually creative and a little rough ‘round the edges.”

Mars is also a London queen, with roots in the capital of Ireland. She’s been doing drag full-time for a year in London and sends a clear message through her art. She explains that she wants everyone to “blur and pull at the lines between man, woman or any identity labels” to learn that ultimately, we’re all human. This stems from where she debated the possibility of her being transgender but realised she just wanted to express her femininity in an extreme way. “It’s not degrading to be feminine. It’s extremely empowering,” she says.

Mars has an active drag career in London, hosting at some of the boujie-est clubs and performing at her own shows. “Working in nightclubs and also performing at shows in drag means that I get to combine so many of my passions like singing, DJing, makeup, and fashion into one,” she says. In terms of the scene, there’s a number of them within London alone, so you can’t really boil it down to one. But Mars thinks this is a great thing, as it’s inclusive. “It means that no matter what kind of drag you want to do, there’s somewhere you’ll fit in perfectly.”

While there are a plethora of opportunities in London, smaller towns don’t have the same luxury. Misty Monique, 23, is a drag queen from Cheltenham. After initially turning down the opportunity to compete in the first local drag competition, she ended up loving it, and well, winning. She explains how the drag scene in Cheltenham is “less obvious, less discussed and less frequent.”

“In Gloucestershire, we don’t even have an LGBTQ+ venue. There are no opportunities here to do drag,” she says. Although the art has gotten more popular and in demand, Misty previously performed “many many shows to a handful of people, for free, in a tiny little pub” - the only places that would give queens a platform. “I was told so many times if I want to make this a real thing, I need to move to a city,” she tells me. She didn’t like this and instead decided to make it work in her hometown, where she’s made a successful career.

Both Mars and Misty express they want to see diversity on what will be the first-ever season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. The air date hasn’t been released yet, but Ru’s conjuring up quite the stir - leaving us all gagging for the announcement. “I hope to see a true representation of what UK drag is which is crazy, creative and inclusive.”