- We're never being allowed back in this country.
- Never ever.
Unfollowed by every UK queen.
- When we come play a ****ing Wembley,
we're going to have UK drag queens like this in the audience.
- Yeah, "Oh, so you're a great beauty with talent.
Let's see it then, hun."
- They're going to say,
"Open the **** up."
You know, one of us is actually
a little more outspoken about this topic,
so I'm gonna let her take the lead.
- Well, let me fix my wig.
- Let me collect myself before I come for you.
-Yeah, yeah. It's like, well...
- I'll back you up on this.
- So say what you want, but
there is zero beauty in the UK, no-
- Whatever happened to glamour?
- Whatever happened?
No, this is before, just
from my personal experience travelling
and seeing the first couple of seasons of Drag Race UK,
just the first couple with the exception of a few.
I think that the UK is a talent-based population.
As opposed,
this is a big generalisation of course,
it’s a huge generalisation,
but it’s woof, woof Kennel Club, Westminster Dog Show.
Dogs who can flip and kick
- Talented dogs.
- And act. The talent, literally,
woof, woof,
jumped out
like jumped over the banister
As opposed to the
can't do shit but look great on Instagram
American girls, who are just lovely,
gorgeous, filtered, flawless.
And then
you give them a microphone and it's like bloop,
crickets, crickets.
They do impersonations of crickets.
That’s their talent.
Yeah, yeah, "crick, crick". I can’t do cricket sounds..
- That was that was your?
- "Crick, crick".
That's a cricket to you?
That's a city person, by the way, “Crick, crick.”
That's what crickets do? “Crick, crick"?
- "Crick, crick." - I'll say this.
I’ll say this, yeah, the drag queens here are more skill-based.
- But can burn the house down, entertain a crowd,
hold the audience, hold a drunken audience.
Give that to one of the Instagram queens,
what are they going to do?
What are they going to do? Filter the audience?
Take a picture on their phone?
It's a little like,
you know, in the sixties in the United States,
men were like a meal ticket for women.
So women would learn like baking or embroidery
because their options are so limited.
Here, the drag queens, they look in the mirror
and they see what's up
and they go, "I got to learn to spin plates.”
- It's hee haw.
- "I got to start tap dancing."
- Yeah, "Can I breathe fire?
Can I do slack rope, tightrope walking?
Can I juggle? Can I be a mathlete?
Can I, you know, solve world hunger?"
- Because the only thing that's going to come natural
is biting an apple through a picket fence.
- Yeah, candle lit shows, a lot of night gigs.
But now, of course, that's not the case.
- Yeah.
- And if things get tough, you can donate your teeth
to a nice Scrabble game in need.
We're never being allowed back in this country.
- Never ever.
Unfollowed by every UK queen.
- When we come play ****ing Wembley.
We're going to have UK drag queens like this in the audience.
- Yeah, yeah.
"Oh, so you're a great beauty with talent.
Let's see it then, hun."
- They're going to say,
"Open the f*** up."
There's exceptions to every rule.
I think in the States, for example,
there's New York, LA, Chicago.
LA is hot Instagram, naked drag queens in swimsuits
taking pictures.
- 20 years old.
- New York is singing
drag queens back flipping telling jokes.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And then Chicago market
is drag queens just doing costumes
they can't even move in doing wig changes,
nail changes,
looks, looks, looks.
- But to be fair, bitch,
if I came of age in this city, in this ****ing,
the scene with not one lick of air conditioning,
you better believe it'd be doggy chow.
It'd be the Puppy Bowl.
- If you are criticising a UK drag queen
and you aren't bringing a window unit to the show.
- Then shut up. - Shut up, bitch.
They're not even getting tips here.
I also want to say
that the other difference is
in the UK, the drag queens can
take light ribbing from American queens.
- Yes, yes.
- And they totally get that it's just an interview,
it's just a joke and it's not personal.
- The main difference
between UK and US drag queens
is that UK drag queens have an incredible sense of humour,
an unflappable levity and
a wonderful understanding
about different perspectives on drag.
- I like London.
Have you ever heard the term: 'Ho's in area codes'?
It's one of my area codes. - Yeah, yeah.
- One of my area codes.
I got a lot of phone calls to make,
a lot neighbourhoods to check out.
I usually go to the Soho House and just finger myself.
Well, the food is good.
I don't prepare it, I've tried.
- I like Dublin.
I love Dublin. I love the Irish.
I'm actually Irish.
I just love it.
- That explains the... - - The what?
The patchy skin?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're all just the hottest blue-eyed little cuties.
Little weird little cuties.
Everybody in Dublin is cute.
Not hot, but cute.
- I've done London, but I've been to Hull, bitch.
I've been to ****ing Edmonton,
I've been to-
- Edmonton, that's in Canada.
- Oh, I've been to Aberdeen.
- Aberdeen!
- I've been places.
- Aberdeen
talk about Aberdeen.
- Girl.
- Aberdeen, Scotland, bitch.
300 people, 200 of them at the show.
- Brighton, they say it's the Chicago of-
- No, Brighton is beautiful.
- They said, it's the Chicago of here.
I said, "Bitch, where?
Bitch, where?"
Brighton is like, it's a seaside, it’s ahhh
- I'll give you this, it's next to the sea.
- I love, Brighton is witchy.
There's a lot of witchy people,
a lot of heroin in Brighton.
- She loves it.
- A lot of junkie witches in Brighton.
Shout out to all my junkie witches.
It's true.
- As a dialect coach, I'm not really open to,
you know, coaching for free.
I mean, that's sort of like my, you know...
- It's her bread and butter.
She's not going to just- - Yeah, you wouldn't
ask Dita Von Teese to strip if she was here.
- Yeah, you wouldn't say,
"Hey Serena, can you just bat some,
you know, can you hit some balls?"
- Yeah, and as a dialect coach, I mean, I work with,
you know, Daniel Day Lewis.
- Judith Dench.
- Judith? Dame Judi Dench.
Yeah.
Well, Dom. Again dialects, you know?
I know her as Dom Dadee Donch, which,
you know, if you know anything about dialects.
but I'm pretty good at
all of my good dialects I think are from TikTok.
So now I'm like, "I'm not laughing,
I've got school, I'm not laughing,
I've got school." I've got school.
I think it's Scottish.
- OK.
- But last time I was in Scotland,
I boiled Irn-Bru and drank it like hot tea.
So I don't, I'm not the one.
- No,
so I love, my favourite ones are
northern Scottish and I'm going to butcher it,
but I swear to God this happened,
maybe I'm imagining it, but I swear to God
they, I knew this girl who did a version of
like a rhyming slang.
And she asked me like, "How is your not Nat King?”
And I was like, “What?”
And she's like, “Your Nat King?
Cole.
Cole rhymes with hole.”
She was asking me how my hole was,
but she said, “How is your Nat King?”
- What? - I know, I know.
It's crazy.
But also, how does Natalie Cole feel about this?
I don’t know.
Like is that OK?
- But then my favourite, favourite, favourite
of all time
is Catherine Tate's Northern Irish, is a Belfast mum.
Is like, “Have you heard about our John?
He's gay man now.”
Now.
- Now.
It’s like, “Eh, what of it.”
Did you hear about our John?
He’s a gay man now.
Is that so?
I once saw a three act play from Ireland called
“By The Bog of Cats”,
and in the end,
the mum murders her daughter on stage and it’s fierce.
But I sat through the whole play, felt nothing,
understood nothing.
But I do know that I spent the whole
next year of my life
going, “By the bog of cats!” Which they never even say.
So, like
I kind of collect my little pieces,
you know, that's why my dialects
are so worldly.
- They’re intuitive.
- I’m travelled.
Besides, I’m from Sweden
We have our own thing.
What is power?
Power to me
is when the people
they listen to you.
When I got to Sweden a few weeks,
last week, somebody at the airport met me
and a gay guy went, “Welcome home.”
And I said, “Thank you, thank you.”