"Pantomime has been around for hundreds of years and has probably been a lot of people’s first experience of drag, mine included."
"In the 21st century Drag Race has even more exploded the art form. I think drag is quite an integral part of British culture, if not worldwide too.
“I think that’s what Drag Race does well, it shows that we are human beings with the same problems as other people.”
Our latest Human of York is alum Marcus Crabb, aka drag queen Kate Butch.
"I started doing drag while I was studying Theatre at York.
"In my second year there was a group of friends that I made in the Comedy Society. We were the only people we knew who watched Drag Race US. It was in its seventh season at the time, so it was still kind of underground, and not a huge amount of people knew about it. We’d get together and watch it every week.
"And then we thought, why don’t we give this a go? So we started a drag club night in Fibbers. It went well because it was one of the only drag nights in York. We did a couple of shows a term and then some of us have stuck with it.
"The club night was called Lip Sync Lollapalooza. We got people to sign up and try out doing drag if they wanted to, or just do it as themselves. We even got the Cheeky Girls to come and do a performance which blew my mind. But overall it was just an excuse to have fun and be silly and be queer.
"For a lot of people it was their first drag show that they were seeing, not just for the students but also for the residents of York.
"There are other drag queens who were in York before us, Velma Celli and Queenie Buffay. But you still had to look hard to find a drag show. People responded very well to ours and we just kept doing it."
