Vesta Tilley Festival hopes to make Worcester the spiritual home of Drag Kings
9 May 2022
A new festival celebrating the legacy of Worcester born Music Hall legend Vesta Tilley will see RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 2 legend Ginny Lemon starring amongst many other renowned Queer Performance Artists. The event hopes to establish Worcester as the ‘spiritual home of Drag Kings’, according to Worcester Theatres.
The Arts Council England supported inaugural event will take place at the Vesta Tilley Studio (Swan Studio) at The Swan Theatre in Worcester and is scheduled for Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd of May 2022. The festival will feature local and nationally recognised Drag Kings including West Midlands’ Don One who hosts the national Drag King competition, Man Up.
Over two days, Worcester Theatres’ Saucy: Queer Performance Worcester Style, will present local, national and international theatre, dance, art and cabaret that explores male impersonation, trans and non-binary identity and expansive ideas of gender.
The festival kicks off at 5:15pm on Saturday with Marie Lloyd Stole My Life by Blue Fire Theatre Company. The play tells the story of fellow male impersonator Marie Lloyd who is the only performer Vesta Tilley ever understudied for and features one of Vesta Tilley’s famous songs.
On Sunday at 5:15pm Beautiful Confusion Collective from the Czech Republic, will present Black Dress, a nuanced autobiographical exploration of non-binary femme identity.
On both Saturday and Sunday evening at 7:45pm Don One will host two different evenings of cabaret and performance. With music, comedy and performance across both nights, Saucy Kings on Saturday will include double act, Jew Von Hefty and Putit-In-Slow from Provisional Act Theatre Company and Saucy regular, Aidan Backwards. Saucy Kings Too on Sunday includes Calico Theatre’s dance work Curfew, featuring five Drag Kings. RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 2 legend, Queen (and now also King) of Worcester, non-binary drag artist Ginny Lemon will also make an appearance at Saucy Kings Too to round off a weekend of Drag King excellence.
“We are so thrilled to have put together a festival that truly honours the legacy of Vesta Tilley by celebrating male impersonation and Drag Kings. I see Worcester becoming the spiritual home of Drag Kings. The festival is also a chance to put gender expression and identity under the microscope. Though it may have been so for Vesta Tilley, now-a-days it is not just a case of Drag Kings being women who impersonate men. Many Drag Kings identify as non-binary and the intersection with trans masculine identity and female masculinity are aspects of performance that no other festival brings together in quite the same way. It will be a fun weekend that also provokes and questions.”
- Saucy Producer, Daniel Somerville