![]() ![]() In matching silver and aquamarine outfits, Adam and Apple compere a line-up including Clay Taurus, relatively new to the scene and dressed like a woolly mammoth drag clown Richard Melanin the Third, who performs a stilt routine in defiance of the venue’s low ceilings Sigi Moonlight, who merges burlesque with a subversive undercutting of Asian stereotypes and fetish performance artist Marnie Scarlet, who strips off layer upon layer of latex to reveal an inflatable crimson phallus and a pair of devil horns. While BoiBox is an outlet for critiquing masculinity, it is also – let’s be clear – a lot of fun. There’s a similarly diverse drag king community in the US, particularly in New York and Seattle, though there, too, it remains marginalised compared with the queen scene. It’s a bit like a family, one audience member says. Besides raising the profile of drag kings on the cabaret scene, BoiBox has created a community, a space where people can comfortably express queer and non-binary identities. So what is a drag king, for those who still don’t know? The simplest definition is that of a female or non-binary performer exploring masculinity. Male impersonators have been a staple of the music hall and vaudeville stage since the Victorian era – female performers dressed in male clothes and slightly satirising male vanity. Yet, while masquerading as masculinity has been used by women as a tool of satire for the best part of two centuries, the drag king in the contemporary sense only really gained prominence in the 1990s.Īccording to Adam, over the last five years the scene “has grown exponentially to well over 100 performing kings”. ![]() Having worked on the drag cabaret circuit since 2008, Adam was finding it “increasingly frustrating how many bookers were just not aware of what a drag king even was”.ĭrag king performers Sammy Silver, 24, left, and Draco Draconis, 21, prepare backstage before a BoiBox show “We felt it was needed,” says Adam, who is the creation of performance artist Jen Powell. Founded by Adam All and fellow drag artist Apple Derrières at the now-closed Candy Bar in London’s Soho, it was set up to encourage and empower drag kings to take to the stage in their astonishing variety. This is changing though, and BoiBox is part of the reason. ![]() If people are familiar with the visual vocabulary of drag queens – thanks largely to RuPaul’s TV series Drag Race – the world of drag kings is less visible. Arifa Akbar, arts editor Read more Read less Natasha Tripney, a stage writer and editor who has been following drag culture for years, reflects on how these performers subvert notions of gender to chime with topical discussions about queer and non-binary identities. This is changing: drag kings who have been performing on the cabaret circuit for decades are now poised to enter mainstream theatres. ![]()
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