Dressed as a Girl

It's sold out because it's obviously really amazing.

This is the end of an era.

Hi, I'm Jonny Woo.

I suppose you could say I'm the ringmaster

of this big old glittery circus.

Some say the word drag comes from Shakespeare's notes

when he wanted boys to dress as a girl.

Some say it doesn't. Who cares?

I just think drag is an excuse to put on women's clothes

and set yourself free.

We're part of a big extended community.

- Flawless maquillage. - Look at that, ooh!

Scottee's the youngest of the group

and definitely the most ambitious.

He sets out to shock and shock is what he usually does.

What can we say about Holestar?

She calls herself a tranny with a fanny.

That's her shtick.

She looks like a man in drag. She acts like a man in drag.

And she has something to say.

Cos I'm a woman

trying to enter that world of being a tranny,

people still seem a bit wary of me.

I associate as not being male or female.

They say that still waters run deep.

But Pia is like a torrent.

And who knows what lies beneath those troubled waters?

There is actually a third sex.

There is a set of people genetically predisposed

to be different than everybody else.

Amber Swallows is outrageous.

If anyone knows where the booze

and the boys are, she does.

Amber, show us your she-male powers.

- She-male powers. - She-male powers.

And then there's our DJ extraordinaire, John Sizzle.

You can bet your life there's a drag superstar

just waiting to get out of that one.

The whole world tells you you can't wear a skirt.

It's about going "fuck you" to everyone else.

If all the world were a stage and we were merely players,

we were about to put on one hell of a show.

Material's very thin today. But, hey, so am I! (laughs)

About ten years ago, we were doing some parties.

And then we came up with the idea

of doing a night called Gay Bingo.

How many ways can you call out numbers? I will show you.

I went to the bun seller. She was selling 74 fairy cakes.

I went, "I want some of them."

She was selling them for 56 pence each.

"56 pence each?"

Gay Bingo's fabulous.

It's a magnet, almost, for the scene.

It wasn't so much about playing bingo, though.

It was more about being as outrageous as possible.

Pushing things as far as we possibly could.

Oh, look, everybody, Ma Butcher's coming up on a pill.

What made Gay Bingo special was anarchy.

She's coming up, she's coming up!

Let's give a big round...

The format is we're gonna play bingo

and we're gonna fuck you up.

We were outrageous. It was provocative.

It wasn't about being cool.

It was about being completely and utterly insane.

I think Gay Bingo was messy.

It was about getting off your nut.

It was anarchic in a way. Kind of bingo turned on its head.

A springboard for doing other stuff.

It's mainstream, it's accessible.

You don't have to be gay to play.

You wouldn't play.

- 69! - (cheering)

What it was all about at the end of the day

was the number 69.

Who wants to do the 69? Come on.

Oh my God, you're gonna have to get all those clothes off.

If the number 69 pops up on the number cruncher,

- Jonny starts dry humping. - Yeah, dry humping.

Dry humping someone.

OK, do you wanna see a slot machine? It's time!

You sit on their face and stick my head down their pants.

Much to the excitement of the baying crowd.

69!

It celebrated the east, and it celebrated the alternative.

And the fashion and the art and the weird and the music

and this collaboration just ignited something.

OK, we are now going for a full house.

In the early days of Gay Bingo, we were either

on a massive comedown of drugs from the weekend

and to counteract your, you know,

the kind of massive insecurities you get on a comedown off drugs,

obviously there'd be a lot of booze being consumed.

And so that became a fixed thing with everyone.

We're on, we're pissed and the audience are pissed

and for a long time it worked.

But there got to a point where it stopped working.

My drinking is linked in to being in social situations

and partying and also if I have one drink I have the lot.

I don't know when to stop. I don't stop.

You know, there is no stop. There has never been a stop.

Beep, beep went the nurse to the doctor one day

There's a drag queen in emergency and I just wanna say

Her wig's on backward, she thinks she's a catch

Her liver's in her handbag and her kidneys don't match

Beep, beep went the doctor when he found the nurse

The drag queen in emergency is getting worse

She shallow fried her liver and swallowed it whole

And the blood in her veins is alcohol

Coo-ee!

We're being filmed. How are you?

- Nice to see you. - I'm fine.

My mum told me once, and this was quite recently actually,

she said, "I was always worried that you were always kind of..."

Not so much scared of failure, really,

but I think she was worried

that if I felt I hadn't done well enough, I'd commit suicide.

Listen, he looks his best anyway cos he's my son.

- There you go. - He's our son, you see.

I always worried about Jonathan.

- Well, yeah. - Cos he nearly died.

- Nearly died when he was born. - When he was born.

Three times you've been rushed to hospital

with life-threatening things.

Well, it's a recurring theme in my life, isn't it, clearly.

I hope you've only had three. I don't want any more.

I was in hospital with multiple organ failure

as a result of drinking and taking drugs.

I was in hospital for about five and a half weeks.

On death's door. Dialysis, the lot.

I didn't know Jonny as a performer

before he came into intensive care.

He was critically ill. His liver wasn't working.

His kidneys were starting to fail.

I had multiple organ failure after party central.

And then I wake up

two and a half weeks later in intensive care.

When we had this phone call to say he was rushed into hospital,

it was awful. Erm... It was awful.

You know, we all hide behind various masks,

and alcohol or drugs are a mask.

The route to survival in this

is that you've got to set yourself some rules.

And if you don't set yourself some rules,

life will become very difficult.

You have to nip it in the bud

and the sooner you can do that, the better, you know.

Performers are all insecure creatures.

We entertain, we're fabulous.

Inside we're screaming.

Don't do drugs, stick to drag.

Well, here's to another 40 then.

Here's to another 40 years. Cheers.

I think he appreciates his family more.

- Yeah. - But it was something

I'd never want to ever, ever have to go through again.

No.

It was the worst time of my life.

(Jonny's mum speaks indistinctly)

When I came out of hospital, I needed to make up for lost time.

Nothing was gonna stand in my way.

I started kind of pulling various people together

and got really excited about seeing something new

and really community blossoming.

There was also this, you know,

thrill at kind of working with loads of different people.

- Morning, Woo-Woos. - Hi, trans.

It's Amber Swallows, look. She's trans.

Welcome!

I consider myself to be a straight woman

but I've also been a gay man.

Morning!

When I first met Amber as she is now,

she was Dean.

Every time I see her she's had some more work done.

This is it, we're getting on. Document it.

I used to have a skinhead, have tattoos all up my neck,

which I am just kind of like getting rid of.

My whole dressing-up side has gradually kind of taken over.

We are the trannies doing a gay tent at Glastonbury,

which has never been done before.

Have you seen the hotel sign? Have you seen all this shit?

We have our role to play.

It's a zone, it's the trans zone.

It's about being colourful.

So what if our balls are hanging out of our bikinis?

I love working with loads of other people.

I love seeing people get excited about being part of the scene.

I love new faces coming on and trying out mad looks

for the first time and being part of the dance troupes.

There aren't any more. We need them.

It's camaraderie. It's part of it all.

This is the fucking work getting done.

Jonny will probably be naked in a field.

And Amber Swallows will be fabulous. Where is she?

Hey, hey! Welcome to Glastonburg!