Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories

Mark Edward is a pracademic and a category dodger. His performance work in live art, contemporary dance performance, theatre, drag and post-modern choreography are often rooted in political and social narratives such as fat body shaming, age(eing) invisibility, homophobia, toxic and bruised masculinity, disability, mental health, class and him being neurodivergent as a ADHDancer and ADHDrag. He has featured in Attitude magazine, Scene magazine and GT magazine, and been interviewed for several BBC radio and TV documentaries, focusing on drag histories and activism, with drag performers Choriza May, Mutha Tucka and Miss Dixie Swallows. He has also featured in ‘The History of Drag’ documentary, alongside Boy George, lanah.p and Ginny Lemon. His research into drag cultures provided the content for the three-part BBC ‘Drag Herstories’ series. He is the author of the book ‘Mesearch and the Performing Body’ (Palgrave), and co-editor (alongside Professor Stephen Farrier) of the books ‘Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers: Drag in a Changing Scene vol 1’, ‘Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories; Drag in a Changing Scene vol 2’ and ‘Drag: the Basics’ (Routledge) with Professor Chris Greenough. He is the writer, and producer of the acclaimed immersive installation work ‘Council House Movie Star’ and the the first person to bring practical drag studies into higher education. He has performed with and worked for a range of arts organisations and artists including Rambert Dance, Senza Tempo Dance Theatre, Penny Arcade in her pivotal work ‘Bad Reputation’ and with the Australian performance activist Jeremy Goldstein in his ‘Truth to Power Cafè’.Stephen Farrier is Reader in Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. With Alyson Campbell he has coedited Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (2015) as well as a themed edition of RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance named the ‘Gender and Sexuality Issue’.

Drag research has arrived. This volume by Edward and Farrier is a triumphant celebration of the critical, creative and speculative potentials of drag. The authors confidently embrace the complexities of drag and offer an affirmative map of its many forms, politics, and contexts. Future drag scholarship will be indebted to the provocations and case studies captured within these pages: from the ‘sequin method’ for historiography to queering panto. I am feeling the fantasy.

• List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors AcknowledgementsForeword by Penny ArcadePreface Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier 1. Dragging up the Past - Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier2. ‘Once upon a time, there was a tavern’: metadrag and other uses of the past at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - Ben Walters3. Camp and Drag in the Mainstream: A Critical Study of the Phenomenon of Drag performance in the Northern British Fun Pubs, 1973-1993 - Chris D’Dray 4. Soldiers in Skirts: Cross-Dressing Ex-Servicemen, Sexuality, and Censorship in Post-War Britain - Jacob Bloomfield5. Kinging the Stage: Male impersonators and drag kings, exploring shared historical narratives - Stephen Farrier6. A Kiss that Breaks the Spell: Japanese “Drag Kings” and the Homosocial Culture of the Takarazuka Revue - Isabelle coy-dibley7. Camp can be such a drag: Approaches to understanding camp and drag - Simon Dodi8. Vonni Diva: Showgirl - Rosslyn Prosser9. FagHag Drag: Penny Arcade’s Archive of Otherness - Joseph Mercier with Penny Arcade10. Nobody’s Trash: Holly Woodlawn’s Puerto Rican Drag and the Subversion of Authorship - Gabriel Mayora11. Bibi is a Sissy: Drag, Death by Silence and the Journey to Self-Determination - Nando Messias12. Mother Sally and The Fig Leaf: Re/Productions of A Carnival Character in Barbados - Nick Ishmael-Perkins13. The Buttcracker: Dragging Ballet into Queer Places - Mark Edward and Helen Newall14. Oh wow! He’s queer! Queering Panto in Belfast: An Interview with Ross Anderson-Doherty - Alyson Campbell and Trish McTighe15. Wicked Queens of Pantoland - Simon SladenIndex