God save the drag kings of England
God Save the Drag Kings of Ramsgate, England
Healfromzero.com – God save the drag kings — at least that is the rallying cry echoing through a narrow back room wedged behind a Ramsgate barber shop, where a woman spends a full hour reshaping her face into a razor-edged jaw, stamping dragon tattoos across her forearms with a damp sponge, flattening her chest with tape, and gluing synthetic hair to her sternum. The last item pulled from a Tupperware tub is a thick, unruly mustache. The moment it lands, the voice plunges a full octave lower, the shoulders snap square, and the walk lurches into a rolling swagger. Every woman in the room earns a slow, raised-eyebrow once-over before the character exits, leaving behind only the name Pat Riarchy.
“Alright ‘luv?”
Pat is a leery, working-class uncle frozen in a 1970s family gathering — the sort who makes women squirm while waving a Union Jack, wearing a leopard-print G-string beneath a cascading mullet, and declaring that “it’s hard being a bloke.” He is baffled by the acronym LGBTQIA+, jokes about “the girls taking our jobs,” and belts an original number called “While Yer Down There Luv” at his self-titled Karablokey nights. At a Pride festival staged in a local swimming pool, he addressed the gathered swimmers with a declaration that has since become a local refrain:
“I am not a professional aqua aerobics instructor. But like all blokes, I can turn my hand to anything.”
The Woman Who Built the Uncle
Trudi Jackson, 52, is an actor and performance coach who grew up in a mining town in south Wales. She has inhabited Pat for five years and describes the work as cathartic — a way of externalising what it felt like to be born female into a childhood saturated with what she calls “hugely toxic” masculinity.
“It’s my playing out of what it’s like to be born female in a world of this masculinity which was hugely toxic when I was growing up.”
The character crystallised, Jackson explains, from her frustration with cancel culture several years before Pat took full shape. Her argument: silencing people drives them underground, which in turn feeds the online manosphere. Her preferred remedy is illumination through comedy.
“My feeling is, let’s shine the light on it and laugh at it – let’s laugh at Pat, not silence him.”
Screaming Alley and the Six-Week King School
Jackson now lives and works in Ramsgate, a harbour town on England’s southeast coast where strings of Union Jacks flutter along the waterfront much as Pat wields his flag on stage. The town sits within the Thanet district — a constituency that voted strongly for Brexit in 2016 and has since become a stronghold for Reform UK, the hard-right populist party led by Nigel Farage. Like many settlements along this stretch of coastline, Ramsgate carries pockets of deep deprivation alongside a growing influx of artists and London transplants seeking a quieter pace of life.
Tucked at the rear of one of the town’s barber shops is Screaming Alley, a cabaret production company that supports independent performers. A hot-pink stairwell plastered with posters of George Michael and Madonna leads down to the Alley Bar and its small stage. On any given evening the space hosts an open mic, a community workshop, or — more recently — Jackson’s masterclass for aspiring drag kings. Over six weeks, students develop their characters, studying masculinity, costume design, makeup technique, and physical movement, with the goal of performing to a live audience at the course’s conclusion.
Why a Drag King Class in a Farage Heartland?
The juxtaposition is deliberate. Reform UK’s brand is tightly bound to a traditionalist, pub-culture masculinity; Farage cultivates the image of the everyman making campaign stops in local public houses, railing against what he frames as social “wokeism” that prevents “young men being young men.” God save the drag kings, then — because the entire premise of the form is to subvert precisely that macho imagery, exaggerating it until it becomes absurd and inviting the audience to laugh alongside the performer rather than at a distant, silenced other.
Lara Clifton, co-director of Screaming Alley, frames the project as a middle path in a polarised district.
“We’re living through a time when conversations around gender, identity, class and power have become increasingly polarized, and Thanet reflects that as much, if not more, as anywhere else. We’re creating a space in the middle of those conversations – not to tell people what to think, but to invite them to play, laugh and spend time together.”
Pat himself would never cast a ballot for Reform. Jackson, speaking in the character’s orbit, describes the affluent, private-school-educated Farage as “a posh boy.” Class is woven into the act from the first note of Karablokey to the final swagger out of the bar.
FAQ
Where does the Screaming Alley drag king masterclass take place? At the Alley Bar, located behind a barber shop in Ramsgate, Kent. Students descend a hot-pink stairwell to reach the small stage and performance space.
How long is the course and what does it cover? The programme runs six weeks. Students study masculinity as performance, costume design, makeup technique, and physical movement, culminating in a live-audience showcase.
Who created the Pat Riarchy character? Trudi Jackson, a 52-year-old actor and performance coach originally from a mining town in south Wales, has performed as Pat for five years.
What is the connection between the project and local politics? Ramsgate sits in the Thanet district, a Brexit stronghold now aligned with Reform UK. Screaming Alley positions its work as a comedic counterpoint to the traditionalist masculinity promoted by that political brand, inviting audiences to engage through laughter rather than confrontation.
