Fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race should prepare themselves for a British version that is “grittier” than its polished US counterpart, according to the contestants who will try to “shante and sashay” their way to victory when the show starts on Thursday night.
RuPaul’s Drag Race, which has run for 11 series in the US and become one of the most successful reality shows of the last decade, has found a home on BBC 3 – where its 10 contestants promise to showcase their unique brand of British drag.
Scaredy Kat, a 20-year-old drag queen from Wiltshire, said fans should expect a “dirtier, grittier and edgier version”, while Gothy Kendoll from Leicester said none of the American pageantry would be on display. “We come from a more campy background and it’s all about having a laugh. In the US they’re from a pageant background where it’s more about presenting yourself in a very polished way,” he said.
Michelle Visage – one of the show’s judges alongside Alan Carr and Graham Norton – said it had taken five years of negotiations to get Drag Race UK to the screen, with the British version launching before an Australian edition due in 2020.
In the build up to the show’s launch its line up has been criticised for not being diverse enough – with eight of the 10 drag queens in the show being white. “I’ve had a lot of messages saying ‘it’s not diverse, it’s not diverse’,” says Vinegar Strokes, who along with Sum Ting Wong are the two drag queens of colour on the show.
“I think actually you need to come out of the mindset of skin colour and think, is the cast diverse in terms of drag? The UK’s drag scene is smaller compared with the US, so you’re not going to get as many queens of colour. So let’s all chill out and enjoy it,” he said.
Wong said the fact there will be some representation on the show should be celebrated. “I feel like it shouldn’t be looked down on; it should be celebrated. I don’t want to be on the show because of my Chinese-Vietnamese heritage,” he said.
Winning the competition can lead to lucrative careers with previous winners Sasha Velour and Bianca Del Rio, going on to build their own brands. “It’s like Dragon’s Den for drag queens. You go in, show what you can do, and then – hopefully – your fee goes up,” said The Vivienne, a drag queen from Liverpool.
A key difference between the US and UK shows will be a lack of arguments between contestants that punctuate the original. Divina De Campo, a veteran drag queen from West Yorkshire, said the best series of Drag Race have been where the contestants have embraced “sisterhood and support”. “It’s not all fighting and cutting up each other’s wigs,” he said.
Strokes believes the show is a way for drag to infiltrate the British mainstream again. “I think it has always been in the mainstream, if you look back to Dame Edna and Lily Savage, it’s always been there. But having actual drag queens from the scene pushing it on TV is going to take it to another level.”
Asked whether the show should be on a primetime slot, the contestants said Drag Race was still too subversive for 7pm on a Saturday. “It’s one of those shows where you can’t do an Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway version of it. You can’t X Factor drag. It has to be in place where you show what you do rather than being judged by the general public,” said Strokes. “People need to watch and learn.”
