My phone rings. It is an unknown number.
‘Hi, Lucy, it’s Dave here,’ the voice says. ‘I was given your details by a friend. Apparently you want to find out more about drag queens.’
‘Oh, hi, Dave,’ I say, elated to have finally hurdled my drag-queen brick wall. Although drag is undoubtedly an open and friendly culture, I didn’t know any drag queens personally and hadn’t had any responses to my Facebook messages, tweets and emails to the various artists I had found online, so I was really struggling to make any inroads here. That was until a friend put me in touch with a helpful Brighton bar manager (thanks, Kat), who must have shared my details with Dave. Of course, the Brighton drag cabaret scene is just one small element of a much broader and thriving drag culture across the UK – a subculture within a subculture, as it were – but I hoped it would at least offer me a glimpse into this vibrant community.
‘Did your friend tell you what I’m doing?’ I ask.
‘No, not really,’ he says.
‘Well, I’m writing a book about British subcultures and—’
‘Oh no!’ – he cuts me off – ‘We’re not a subculture, dear. We are an enormous, thriving community, not some seedy underworld. We’re out in the open, as big as West Hollywood. Have you even heard of West Hollywood?’
‘Yes,’ I lie, ‘I—’
He interrupts me again. ‘Well, if you are looking for a subculture, then you’re looking in the wrong place.’
I somehow manage to persuade him, in the short bursts of words he allows me to shoehorn in, of what I mean by a subculture. ‘Not the typical British mainstream,’ I land on.
‘Well, when I think of subculture, I think of lowlifes, you know, and murderers.’
‘No, no,’ I laugh. ‘I’m not spending time with any murderers.’
‘Well, you wanna be careful with that word,’ he warns me. ‘Some people won’t like it.’
I haven’t had any trouble using it so far. In fact, a lot of the groups I have spent time with have even worn it as a badge of honour, proud to be different from the mainstream. But I can see why those who have had to fight for acceptance from society might take offence at being dubbed non-mainstream, and vow to rid the word from my vocabulary for the next week.
Dave lowers his hackles. ‘Well, let me start by telling you that drag queens are professionals; they’re not just men who dress up as women – that’s trannies, darling. Nothing wrong with trannies, but they aren’t the same thing. Drag queens are men who make a professional living as entertainers. There is a big difference.’
‘Got it, thank you.’
He continues, ‘Lots of pubs pay thirty pounds for amateur drag queens to host karaoke nights and crack a few jokes, but they aren’t the real deal. Drag artists are comedians in wigs. There are five main acts in the Brighton scene at the moment.’ He pauses. ‘I hope you are writing this down?’
I scrap around in my backpack for a pen, balancing my iPhone against my shoulder.
‘There’s Davina Sparkle – that’s me, darling – then there’s Maisie Trollette, who is the oldest drag queen in the country at over eighty, then there’s Miss Jason, Dave Lynn and Lola Lasagne.’
I scribble the names on the back of a rejection letter from the Estate of Kate and Wills (it was worth a try…).
Dave continues, ‘I was in a TV thing a while back. But they all want to sensationalise it. So they cut and paste their videos and they end up making you look like a dick.’
I reassure him that I do not plan on making him look like a dick, and we agree to meet at Legends (‘Brighton’s Biggest Gay Hotel’) the following weekend.
Eight days later I carry a suitcase of sparkly clothes through a sea of immaculately dressed men and make for reception. Once checked in, I head straight to my room, put on a jazzy top, force myself out of my room and head back down to the bar full of strangers to try and make some friends.
‘They are only strangers until you talk to them,’ I mutter to myself, probably looking like I’ve lost the plot, before ordering a large glass of wine from the bar.
With my glass of confidence in hand, I make for a middle-aged, smiling couple sitting by the stage.
‘Hello,’ I say, waving gormlessly, ‘I’m Lucy.’
‘Hi, Lucy,’ the lady says, a short bob framing her friendly face. ‘I’m Kim.’ She smiles, stretching out her arm to encompass the man sitting next to her, ‘And this is Graham.’
I take a big gulp of wine. ‘I’m on my own – do you mind if I join you?’
Graham pulls out the chair next to him, and I collapse into it, relieved to have some company.
‘We come out to see Davina quite a bit.’ Kim points at the empty stage. ‘She has recently had an operation on her knee, so I’ve been doing some of her washing and ironing.’
‘Yeah,’ Graham rolls his eyes and smiles. ‘Cheeky cow!’
‘Do you always refer to a drag queen as a “she”?’ I ask, cringing at my naivety.
‘Oh yes,’ Kim says, ‘I always call Dave Davina. But it depends. Maisie Trollette, for example. Now she hates anyone calling her “she” when he’s not in drag. But most don’t mind either way.’
I hope I don’t mess this up.
With that, Davina appears from behind the bar in dramatic make-up, a huge blond wig, a black sequinned jacket and velour trousers. She weaves through the crowd as the soundtrack switches to show tunes. It is around this point that I start to feel a lot more relaxed. I bloody love show tunes.
Davina makes for the stage. ‘Now, I do swear a lot. So if anyone is easily offended, I suggest you fuck off,’ she begins.
After an hour of observational comedy, filthy jokes and cabaret songs, she points to me and beckons me up on stage. I have no idea how she identified me: I guess I look much more out of place than I’d hoped.
I walk up the few stairs to greet her, shielding my eyes from the burning lights.
‘Everybody, this is Lucy,’ she says to the audience. ‘She is writing a book on drag queens.’
Hmmm, sort of true.
She looks back at me. ‘Are you straight, Lucy?’
I nod.
‘Well, watch out for all the lesbians.’ She points to the back of the hall. ‘They’ll be after you.’ She fills two glasses with a black syrupy drink and passes one to me. I decide to try and link my arm through hers for a dramatic down-in-one.
‘Oh no, we’re not going to do any of that, darling.’ She pushes my hand away. ‘You’ve got a vagina.’
After one more cabaret number, the show ends to rapturous applause, and Davina invites me up to her hotel room to talk.
I sit in silence and watch her remove her wig and saturate a cloth in baby oil to wipe away her make-up.
‘See, in Brighton,’ she says, unprompted, ‘they have a drag cabaret circuit.’ She hands me her wig and gestures for me to put it on a polystyrene head sitting on top of the wardrobe.
‘The main scene is: start here at four o’clock sharp, then get to the Queens Arms for six o’clock, then on to Charles Street for seven-thirty. It’s a tradition. Each venue will give the main drag queens four bookings a year. Are you with me?’
I nod, wondering when my narrative should switch from she to he; at what point Davina becomes Dave.
‘Is this what you do for a living?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, this is my full-time job, four to five nights a week,’ she says. ‘But I also manage a male striptease company called the Adonis Cabaret Show, so on a Saturday night, I do that. It’s a bit daunting because you have a little bit to drink as well, so you have to watch your health.’ She pats her belly and raises an eyebrow. ‘But I love it. Wouldn’t want to do anything else.’
Davina now moves onto scrubbing at the layer of plastic that keeps her thick eyebrows pinned down. The change is dramatic.
‘Do you feel different when you take your make-up off?’ I ask.
‘No, I don’t feel any different in drag or out of drag.’ She takes a sip of water and rubs the sides of her face. ‘We don’t dress as women; we dress as drag queens. A lot of straight girls don’t get that. They think that we are all trying to be women, but it’s not true. I look like a parody of a drag queen, really, like a pantomime dame.’
‘Do you enjoy dressing in drag?’
She looks at me in the mirror, as if noticing I’m there for the first time. ‘Not at all,’ she says. ‘I hate dressing as a woman. Hate it. But I love the show.’ She looks back at her reflection with a joyful longing. ‘The gays wouldn’t accept you as a man doing jokes, you see. They want a drag queen. The audience like you being camp with them’ – she turns her head and winks – ‘because we all like a bit o’ camp.’
She gestures for me to pass her jeans.
‘Even in the old days with Kenneth Williams, Round the Horne was a popular radio programme. They used to come out with all the gay speak – like “bona lallies on the omi” – and people would laugh because they didn’t know what it meant.’
She looks at me expectantly. I smile and raise an eyebrow, willing her to continue.
‘Nice legs on the man!’ She grins before turning her attention back to the mirror.
I did know what Davina was talking about. Known as Polari, this code language was used in the early twentieth century by gay men to communicate safely when homosexuality was still a criminal offence. It was a mixture of different slangs and argots, containing elements of French, Italian, Yiddish and Romani languages as well as back slang (pronouncing words as if they were spelled backwards), Cockney rhyming slang and Elizabethan thieves’ cant. It was also widely used by circus and fairground people (hence the Romani), theatre actors, sailors and sex workers. Its use faded after the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalised homosexuality, but some of its words have become part of everyday English. It is saluted in the name of the Polari Prize, which is currently the only literary award that celebrates writing that explores the LGBTQ+ experience.
‘But there is so much equality at the moment,’ Davina continues. ‘People can go anywhere, get married, all that stuff. So we’re losing our identity as a gay scene, you know? People just go, “Oh, he’s a poof. Seen it all before.”’ There is a pause. ‘Equality is a good thing, of course, but all I’m saying is, be careful what you wish for.’
She wrestles with her flies while I wrestle with what she has just said. I have honestly never thought of this before. Does equality somehow make us less unique? Does something lose its appeal as it becomes more mainstream, more accepted? Perhaps that’s why many pagans have abandoned the summer solstice at Stonehenge as tens of thousands flock to join them, the experience somehow losing its value. There is something nostalgic about Davina bringing up Polari here that speaks to a sense of her version of the old gay culture being somehow lost or dissipated.
‘If you could command the same audience performing out of drag,’ I try, ‘would you prefer that?’
‘Well, some people do,’ she says. ‘Like Miss Jason, and Lola as well. They’ve done stand-up. But I don’t because the make-up is a cover, it’s a “you can’t hurt me, I’m a character”. When I am Dave, I’m just Dave, but when I am Davina, I am outrageous, and a little bit naughty. So that’s the difference.’
I am reminded of the LARPers; the escapism of taking on another persona and the freedom it gives you to do things you believe yourself incapable of in your other identity.
‘So it’s like something to hide behind?’
‘Course it is,’ she says. ‘It’s a mask that you put on.’
Now fully Dave again, he takes a final look in the mirror and narrows his eyes. ‘Oh God, I’m a bit pissed!’
When we arrive at the Queens Arms together to watch Lola Lasagne’s show, the crowd is full of familiar faces from Legends, including Kim and Graham. Lola has a powerful, pitch-perfect voice, and between her and Davina, I am impressed with the level of vocal talent and showmanship I have seen on this scene so far. The crowd love her, especially the very loud front circle of black-shirt-clad women, out for a social with the local skittle club.
During the performance, a trio of Dave’s friends take me to the back of the pub to look at pictures of all the big local queens like Mandy Gap and Tanya Hyde.
‘Where are you off to next?’ I ask the guys. ‘Charles Street,’ is the unanimous response.
‘Can I come with you?’
‘Of course!’ Dave joins in, introducing me to the wider group. ‘Everyone, this is Lucy. She’s coming with us, and she’s writing a book about drag queens.’
‘Well, it’s about lots of different subcultures really,’ I pipe up, emboldened by my third glass of wine. ‘But Dave doesn’t like that word.’
‘Yeah, we had a bit of a barney about that on the phone, didn’t we, darling?’ Dave winks at me.
On the way to Charles Street, I tell one of Dave’s friends what my book is about. ‘So I have been living with different communities, like hippies, pagans, circus performers, goths,’ I explain.
‘Ohhh.’ He screws up his nose. ‘I don’t know if I like the idea of drag queens being in a book with all that lot.’ I sidle away from him as we enter the bar, unwilling to entertain his prejudice, and not sober enough to be polite about it.
I stumble home at around eleven, and fall into a dreamless sleep, pissed as a fart. I am sure some interesting stuff happened over the course of the evening, but I honestly can’t remember any of it.
I spend the following day writing and people watching in the bar, enjoying the strong sense of community as people come and go, sharing their gossip and making plans. A few of the regulars come over for a chat, curious about my writing, and, more likely, wondering what somebody wearing a fleece and hiking backpack is doing in Brighton’s Biggest Gay Hotel.
Four o’clock sneaks up on me, and so does Miss Jason. ‘I’ll be the one with the laptop just inside Legends,’ I had texted him to say.
He texted back immediately: ‘I’ll be the fat camp one. Lol. X’
I love him already and wave manically as he walks over. He has a rosy face with spiky brown hair and a button nose. He buys me a pint of cider and orders himself a soda water. ‘I’m trying to lose a bit of weight,’ he says, presumably to excuse himself from not drinking alcohol. I’m sure this must be a British thing.
‘I’ve been doing this for seventeen years this August,’ he begins after we have settled in the corner of the bar.
‘What did you do before drag?’
‘I worked in the House of Lords, as a researcher and constituency officer’ – he makes a bet-ya-weren’t-expecting-that face – ‘I was also the youngest county councillor in the country, elected at twenty-one.’
‘What did your ex-colleagues think of you becoming a drag queen?’
‘Some of them were quite accepting of it, and I’m still in touch with them. But others just finished with me there and then. I think they just didn’t understand it; it was too different for them, so they shut down.’
I remember the battle re-enactor telling me about her colleagues reacting in the same way. I guess some people just don’t know how to respond to someone who is different; so afraid of something they don’t understand, they simply block it out and pretend it doesn’t exist.
We pause to stroke a passing dog. ‘She likes me as a man,’ Jason says, tickling the dog’s chin. ‘But she can’t stand me in drag. Barks her head off!’
He starts to sing along with the music, swaying his head from side to side and raising his eyebrows. ‘We always sing as kids, don’t we?’ he says. ‘Oh, I’m a vain old queen, though. Sang in the mirror, din’ I? With a hairbrush.’ He laughs.
I pick up on this. ‘Now, you used the word queen there, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a drag queen, right?’
‘Oh no, it just means another gay man.’
I picture one of my gay friends, wondering how long it would take for him to talk to me again if I called him a queen. I try to clarify: ‘A certain type of gay man?’
‘Yeah, a camp, effeminate man. But I do tend to refer to all men as she, even the butch ones. It winds some people up like nothing else, but that tends to make me want to do it more.’
The dog wanders back over and jumps onto the bench between us. Jason strokes its head absent-mindedly. ‘The essence of drag is disappearing,’ he continues, his tone softer. ‘The young ’uns coming up through now are more like female impersonators.’
‘Why is it changing?’
‘I think one of the reasons is to do with how much gays have moved on in the last decade,’ he says. ‘Now we can go anywhere we like. We can be as camp as we like and get away with it. So our scene is disappearing, and as our community has moved on, it has become more popular on the telly – Graham Norton, Alan Carr, Paul O’Grady – so there is less demand to have the outrageous camp on stage.’
I am reminded of my time with the circus, of the decline of nostalgic, live performances like this, in the face of modern-day entertainment beamed straight into our living rooms. Of course, this is where you can also catch the fabulous Ru Paul’s Drag Race, a show that has grown from a small, fervent fan base to regularly clocking up more than 700,000 viewers, sweeping the Emmy Awards for Reality TV year after year. The show has no doubt done a huge amount to popularise drag and bring it to a wider audience, but perhaps it has also changed the face of the more traditional drag-show scene, forcing performers like Davina and Miss Jason to either appeal to nostalgia or adapt with the times.
‘Evolve or die, that’s what people say, isn’t it?’ Jason interrupts my thoughts. ‘Well, I’m doing a bit of work as a man soon. Stand-up comedy. I hope the stand-up grows, because I am desperate to get on the telly.’
I think about the transformation of Paul O’Grady from his drag alter ego Lily Savage; it’s almost difficult to remember him as Lily now, but she was the one who stole the nation’s heart, then Paul came in and sealed the deal. But would he be as successful if he went back? I would like to think so.
‘Are you nervous about performing as a man?’
‘Yes, I shall wear these glasses’ – he holds up black, thick-framed glasses – ‘because I won’t have my make-up, the wig, the frock and the jewellery. It’s all armour you see, dear. Emotionally, dressing in drag is fantastic, because it brings me fun. But physically it’s a nuisance, squeezing myself into tights and Spanx, tucking my old man away and all that business.’
‘Would you do this for ever, if you could?’
‘I think my longing for stimulation, attention and adulation—’ He puts his hand over his mouth. ‘That’s terrible, innit, but it’s true. Something like that always stays with you, because if you’ve had it once, you want it again. You always want another applause, and you want it to be bigger and louder each time. I don’t think I would ever lose that.’
It’s time for Jason to go up to his dressing room and transform into Miss Jason. I picture yesterday’s experience of Davina’s dressing room in reverse. Before he goes, I have time for one last question.
‘Why do you want to be on the TV?’
He pauses for a few seconds and then grins, ‘Because I’m an attention-seeking poofter, darling!’