Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the Oxfordshire Drag Collective’s yearly competition, 'Oxford's Next Hot SPUD’. Eight acts competed for the title during a varied and highly entertaining evening in the Old Fire Station’s black box theatre.
‘SPUDS’ stands for ‘Strange People Undertake a Drag Show’ - and their themed drag evenings every few months are always popular and warmly received. Having had a blast at last year’s competition, I was hoping for another evening of creativity and mayhem. Thankfully, the event didn’t disappoint.
This time judges included Glamourous Nightclub’s resident queen Sera Tonin, last year’s winning king Henry the 8th (aka performer Hannah Clift), Oxford Pride’s Entertainment Officer Dean, and head judge (and ODC co-producer) queen Cairo Iman Ali.
As with last year Scarlett Von Kok, drag queen - and co-producer of ODC with Ali - hosted the event. With big hair and a gaudy glamour, Von Kok refers to herself as the ‘Camp Cow of Oxford’ and her warm, brassy humour and energy make her a wonderful host - simultaneously putting the audience and acts at ease and hyping them up. There was a seamlessness to her banter that felt very professional, in a good way.
The first act of the night was queen Emmi Late, who performed “The Court of King Caractacus”. She had the guts to ask the still acclimatizing crowd for two audience volunteers to come onstage right off the bat. After a few seconds, I volunteered (for full disclosure), though I was unfamiliar with the song. It turned out to be in the same format as ‘Rattlin’ Bog (Bog Down in the Valley-o)’ - which begins in the first verse by telling us about a bog in the valley, then a hole in the bog, then a tree in the hole, branch on the tree, limb on the branch, etc. Each verse is performed faster than the previous one to account for the new addition. Thankfully, us volunteers were not meant to sing - but ‘Caratacus’ had an accompanying, increasingly intricate dance that we were to follow Late in performing, as was the audience. It was tremendously good fun, both onstage and - judging from the rest of the audience - off. Late had strong enough lungs to carry the song, and the all-involving silliness ended up being a perfect warm-up for the rest of the show. In terms of style, there was something slightly haphazard and punk about the red and black latex outfit and heavy black eyeliner worn by Late. Her rapid-fire rude jokes, had the endearingly awkward, blustery quality of comedians like Maisie Adam and Noel Fielding.
Next up was Justine Malone, who performs as a drag king under multiple characters, and tonight gave us a swaggering Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Malone, who recently killed it playing George Michael in a series of Wham parody sketches at Be My Cabaret, brought her signature blend of sketch, song, and intense commitment to the bit. Using a magic mirror and era-appropriate smartphone, Gaston swiped fruitlessly and lamented the frustrations of trying to find a suitable bride, before bursting into his beloved titular song “Gaston” (any parody of the character would feel incomplete without this number). Remarkably realistic rubber eggs were a delightful accompanying prop. It was a winning act (literally - Malone took home the Runner-Up), in part because it didn’t over-complicate the already amusing character, and in part because it got the balance of jokes, music and visual gags just right.
Malone was followed by queen Morgan Le Slay, whose masterfully precise makeup and taffeta and mesh dress impressed before their performance had even begun. They lip synced to their own voiceover depicting a profoundly invalidating and bureaucratic NHS appointment, in which they attempted to be referred for an autism assessment. This was spliced with a cleverly adapted cover of the song “A Diagnosis” from the TV show Crazy Ex Girlfriend, which gave them a chance to showcase some beautiful vocal work. It was a cuttingly funny and highly creative piece.
The final act of the first half was the return of the queen Lily Lovelace, whose performance opened last year’s competition. There was a pleasingly polished cohesion to Lovelace’s outfit, which paired a black catsuit with very prominent breast and hip forms and a towering voluminous blonde half-updo. The exaggeration felt like a satisfying match to her bimbo persona. The act was a pseudo-advert for a ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ type CD called ‘Chronic Illness Pop Divas’. Lovelace danced and lip synced to TikTok remixes of Katy Perry, Carly Rae Jepsen and more, in which the lyrics had been spliced to mimic conditions like amnesia and dyslexia. It was gleefully silly, all the more so for the carefully homemade props and clear amount of thought that went into her performance. Spoiler alert: Lovelace took home the crown at the end of the evening.
Bringing something different, CJ Hopkins gave us a ‘boylesque’ Marvel parody in my favourite costume of the night: an astonishingly intricate tearaway Avengers style bodysuit made entirely from artfully layered, coloured duct tape. His act parodied the Marvel character Thanos’ quest for the six infinity stones he needed to enchant his amulet. In Hopkin’s version, each stone represented a trial of performing, from song to dance to skit. Shedding layers and moving through them, he served us a clever showcase of his talents that entertained regardless of your familiarity with the source material.
Next up, we had drag king Fuckboi Jeff - a thoughtless, supremely confident frat boy created by performer Michaela Brady. The performance, a riotously rewritten cover of “Piano Man” by Billy Joel would have involved a keyboard - but the instrument collapsed the second it was touched. Brady played this off so well as part of the character’s clueless nature, continuing the song without missing a beat, that I didn’t realise at first the incident wasn’t intentional. This also left Jeff freer to fully dominate the stage, brandishing a cartoonishly oversized ziploc bag of weed - occasionally returning to the fallen keyboard to play it with his feet. On top of audience interactions built into the verses, Brady also managed to guzzle half a drink while sliding into a front split. From conception to execution - even in the face of a technical difficulty - it was one of the most assured and polished acts of the night.
Our penultimate act was Lentil the Queen, a drag queen who brought a quiet, haughty glamour to her ‘Hell’s Admin Assistant’ act. Clad in a professional white button down and pencil skirt, she lip synced to a creative voiceover, doing the intake assessment for a range of potential hellgoers, represented by familiar soundbites (think HawkTuah). The character becomes more and more exasperated by the bureaucratic pointlessness of the job, and eventually strips off the workwear and writhes to a sped-up, punk version of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5”. It was highly original and well-executed, and perfectly paired with the final act of the evening, Big J. Big J is a nonbinary drag performer, whose makeup embraced a more expressionistic look, with bright geometric lines and shapes distorting their facial features. They dressed in and oversized blazer and tie, with a large white shirt refashioned into a baggy accompanying skirt. Their character appeared to be BBC’s TV Licensing; not a representative for it, mind you, but the spirit of the license itself. They lip synced to a hilariously self-pitying ballad about being universally loathed, which then turned increasingly demonic and chaotic - with dance moves to match. It was a weird and wonderful end to a high energy evening.
I can’t say any criticisms of this year’s line up - there wasn’t a rotten spud in the whole sack. Though there were originally eleven performers announced, the actual eight meant the night felt comfortable and focused, with each act having time to shine. And wow, they really shone. I’m looking forward to the next ODC show.