City of Queens

My son is gay.

Stands out in a crowd.

Does his makeup better than I.

My son is gay and I am proud.

My son is abused...

Back the fuck off.

- Back the fuck off. - What am I doing?

...by individuals and crowds

Delete that. Are you fucking dumb? Delete it.

My son is my son.

My son has your spit on his face...

Back the fuck off.

Your pint over his head.

Delete that, delete that!

He walks head held high.

My son is my son.

My son bears the marks

of your fists on his face.

Carries the scars from your verbal punches.

My son is my son and I am proud.

This is what happens on a night out.

It starts with getting stressed out about the makeup

because the eye lashes aren't gluing down properly.

With some disco music on and a bit of Prosecco.

No, not Prosecco because I can't afford it

-Ehm... -Five pounds from Lidl.

What?

You left this lidless.

It's like a childhood dream basically

living in a house where you just play dress up

and have sleepovers.

Oh, Disco!

Beauty blender.

Every fucking time.

I'm Tommy, I'm 24

and then my drag name is Bimini Bon Boulash.

And she jumps into the splits as well all the time.

There's not much difference between her and her character to be honest.

She's always on the floor, jumping into the splits,

picking up honey like--

No! Get in your bed.

Stay!

Yeah, so I had thyroid cancer when I was 17

and then again at 19.

It did give me this attitude

of ?I don't give a fuck anymore.?

Don't care about making a fool of myself anymore

falling over, or having one of my balls

hanging out like, it's all part of it now.

So I think it's given me that broader aspect on life

that has allowed me to do drag.

I started drag originally

when I was selling underwear on Craigslist.

And then I created this character called Chuck

who was like a masculine character

so I guess that was my first experience of drag,

and then I kind of from that started

from doing the lip sync...

started developing a female character called Barbs.

Oh my God, Disco's had that one.

Okay. I'm Luke, I'm 26, aka Camile Leon.

With the Camile Leon, it's like the two together

combine to make this reptilian X-Men mutant thing

that is my superhero.

She's loving, she's adorable.

We've all got a completely different style of drag.

It's amazing.

Oh ladies, don't leave!

You look fantastic.

We're always together which is nice.

That helps the confidence a lot.

When you walk out the house

with five or six drag queens

all stumbling down the road

it's a really great way to build confidence.

I never really felt like I belonged.

So I just kind of like float around.

I usually just get ready on my own.

I go to the club with Vinny

and Veto who I live with

and they don't normally do drag.

They do now and then

but I normally just go in drag on my own

and then I'll see people there.

It's really taught me that you can express yourself

and not be fearful about it

and really be unapologetic.

Because I was always finding faults with myself

and finding reasons to be sorry for things I haven't done.

And once you learn to let go of that

you can really just be you then.

The thing I've been so lucky to do

and a lot of gay people and drag queens are the same

you get to choose your friends

and you get to choose your family.

I think that's so important as well

'cause I just surrounded myself with creative people

from all different aspects and walks of life.

My name is Jack

but wigs and duck tape later

I am Jacqui Swallows.

I am 21, I've been a drag queen

for coming up three years.

Three years, shit.

I was an annoyingly cocky little kid.

My sister used to go to ballet classes

and I used to sit there in the show

and be like, ?I don't think that was very good.?

I was probably quite nasty, I would tell her

I would do things better than she did.

And then my mum said, "All right then."

One day and she took me to ballet classes

and then I was a ballet dancer for nearly eight years.

I went to The Royal Ballet School

and then I went on tour for a while.

I went on tour with the Royal Ballet Company, that was cool.

And so I've always kind of been a bit performy.

So I guess drag was kind of my way back into performing.

It still baffles me that my parents were shocked

when I came out.

No, he's cute to be fair.

He's got one of those faces that I'd ride

like a stolen bike, ladies and gents.

Aggressively and feet first.

Jacqui kind of came about because...

as an individual I've always been someone who enjoys...

laughing and funny

and that ridiculously dirty humor.

I'm the one that sits on the Piccadilly line

and laughs when it says the train's going to Cockfosters.

Just because it's funny.

So it kind of came about this kind of...

this slightly larger than life old dirty mouth

kind of Hyacinth Bouquet

crossed with Samantha from Sex and the City.

Which is kind of terrifying when you think about it but...

it seems to work.

Fat queer bearded Muslim...

Child of migrants.

I am The Nightbus, that's my drag name.

I'm a drag queen based in London.

I'm a storyteller.

Initially they were stories to do with myself,

whether it's to do with my identity

or my mental health

or how I felt about myself

in perspective of the environment I was in.

As I've gone on over five years

it's more to do with telling the stories

of other people who don't have an opportunity

to tell their story.

* Paki, Paki, Paki, Paki, Paki, Paki *

So there are so many things that I can say...

in a feminized version of myself

that I wouldn't be able to say if I was a boy.

And that connects a little bit to also being a boy

who is Muslim and brown

and often labelled as a terrorist

which has happened quite a lot throughout my life.

So my voice doesn't matter as much as someone else's

because people will dismiss me as being either a danger

or a threat, or somebody that they don't want to interact with.

However if you're in a feminized version of that

they will listen to you.

This is where it connects with the idea of misogyny

because it's less threatening, because it's a female voice

and I hate that idea

but the only way that I can sort of embrace it

is by championing it.

- -

Today we're going to King's Cross

to play some piano.

[piano playing classical music]]

Classical music is still so inaccessible.

In classical music we're still having the conversation

about female composers and whether or not

women can compose

and I think it's disgusting.

I mean I don't think classical music is quite--

the classical music scene is quite ready yet for drag,

but I think classical music as itself has been

quite queer for a long time.

But it's not really anything that's addressed much.

So I don't really know what to expect from today.

I remember the last time I played on these pianos

I ended up spending like an hour

teaching 5-year old how to play

?Mary had a Little Lamb'

which was really cute.

So that may happen today, who knows.

I don't know, hopefully they'll be like ?Ah that's nice?

or they might think it's unusual

because not every day you see a drag queen in a wedding dress

playing piano on Sunday lunchtime.

And that's the thing as well, I'm very used to being

in the dark or being in a club setting so...

And it's nice to show people outside that setting

what we do and drag queens aren't just all vulgar people

that make jokes and roll around,

which is exactly what I do as well