Words by Jason Reid
This year’s Drag Idol UK competition once again showcased some very exciting new drag cabaret talent. For me, the most interesting aspect was the range of genres and ingenuity on display. More so than any previous year. As 2015 was with LoUis CYfer, 2017 also is a defining year for the competition.
The line-up for the grand final pretty much reflected where UK drag is at right now: fresh, edgy, progressive and most of all fun. Gingzilla brought shedloads of sass and a striking immersive set, Ginny Lemon brought a refreshing slice of performance art tinged with a sense of delirium, Shania Pain brought vocals that reverberated around the room and gags aplenty, and finally, the eventual winner Tracy Barlow (representing RVT) brought one of the most unique cabaret performances I’ve seen in a competition setting. It was a masterclass in dark humour, comic timing, impeccable editing and presentation – all set to the soundtrack of ‘Cell Block Tango’.
After being released from the clink, Tracy took some time out to chat to me…
Hey Tracy, congratulations on winning Drag Idol. How did you celebrate?
Thank you lovey! Celebrate, you ask? Well I’m not one for going over the top, so it was a small house white for me as I let my adoring fans fawn slavishly over me until I’d had enough. Then I told Ginny Lemon to bugger off back to Birmingham and I went straight home to bed. I had a colonic booked for the next day so I was off solids: no late-night kebabs I’m afraid.
How would you sum up the whole experience?
Redemptive: I came into the thing a murderous, copro-zoophilic, cannibalistic criminal with syphilis to boot, and I left one step closer to being on Good Morning Britain. Everyone knows celebrities don’t go to prison, petal!
Your friends and family must be over the moon for you?
Family? I’m an orphan who was raised by Catholic nuns; that’s explains a lot, doesn’t it? We’re all over the moon that I’m out of the clink now, particularly my seamstress at Ellie May Studio!
Surely you have fans?
Yes, some more zealous than others. There’s one crazed loon, bless her, who tells people she’s my mother but I turn a blind eye (literally) as she’s terminal.
Describe yourself using only only a movie title.
A cross between Pretty Woman and Marley & Me.
What drives you?
My caseworker drives me, yeah, drives me flippin’ nuts, pet! ‘Tracy, it’s Jim Lavender, why were you late to court? Why aren’t you wearing your ankle monitor? Why did you throw a brick through my window at 4am?’ My whole career is a case of me trying to keep that bender off my back – IRONIC.
What’s your idea of paradise?
A little cottage by a country road with a great dark man who worships the ground I slither on. We’ll make sweet music 24/7 with hopes of starting our very own roadkill café.
Who’s your celeb crush?
Rupert Murdoch, MARRY ME! I’ll bounce up and down on that eighty-six year-old billionaire until I’m the world’s richest widow! With every thrust; with every ripple of his collapsed, withered midriff, with every gargling dusty groan, Fox News would fall into my suspiciously large hands.
What haven’t you done that you’d like to do?
I want to do a talk show with a bunch of my best girlfriends; we’d talk about current affairs and female trouble, with guest spots as well, all broadcast from a remote desert island. It would be called Recluse Women.
Tracy’s creator and caseworker, Jim Lavender…
‘By some perversion of law and order, Tracy Barlow is free to walk the streets of London once again. It is with a heavy heart and great controversy that the Barlow case is finally closed, but here’s hoping that the old girl has cleaned up her act for good and will be on her best behaviour. I must thank my associate, Chloe Rose, as well everyone involved with Drag Idol, the team at Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and all the fabulous fellow contestants and anyone who came to support Tracy at the trial.’
