On 19 October we produced the ninth edition of our drag king cabaret, The Kingdom Come, transforming Crookes Social Club into an enchanted forest for a night of mischief and magic.
This night showcases some of the UK’s most exciting drag acts, and they’re all drag kings, although those attending this evening’s event could be mistaken that the stage had been taken over by all sorts of creatures and beings!
Yorkshire-based Ding Frisby took to the stage as a mushroom, with a very witty act finding the connections between the world of mycelium and polyamory, while Pure Gliss’ first act was also mushroom inspired, with a beautiful costume. Pure Gliss wowed us with their siren song with their second act too.
Our host Manly Mannington started the evening dressed as a giant blue flower, and ended up as a cyborg robot character, whose mesmerising movements had all eyes glued on him. Jamie Fuxx served up his smooth singing and seduction, with two acts that had their fair share of surprises.
Dandy Darling brought his high octane acts, bursting forth on the stage as both a worm and praying mantis. All we could say was ‘wow!’
We knew we could rely on Sigi Moonlight to supply us with some seriously surreal and fairly sexual acts, and he appeared both as a tin man and Adam, who of course you’d meet down in the forest. He was said to have a bit of bother with a snake who attended with one of the audience members, but nothing of enough concern to warrant the casting of any spells.
Good job too, as many in our community had arrived dressed as magical beings, and who knows what they were keeping under their mushroom hats. It was great to see so many embracing the theme!
Our Community Information stall was back (read more about that here in this blog) with added crafts, so some took the opportunity to model some creepy crawlies from the modelling clay we provided. As usual the vegan cake from Little Town Pantry was gone before the first act was done!
Thanks to all who took part in the raffle, helping us raise vital funds for our Pay it Forward ticket fund, enabling us to continue to provide discounted and free tickets to those who need them at future events. A huge thanks also to the Andro & Eve team, tech team and volunteer crew who helped everything run smoothly on the night.
This event was a fundraiser for Andro & Eve, and we were relieved to meet our fundraising target of £1000 – which we will use as match funding to support future programmes of creative activity for our community in South Yorkshire.
The Kingdom Come will return in 2025, so to be first to find out the date of the next event, and get access to the ticket pre sale, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter. It also contains lots of useful resources for support for LGBTQ+ folks and a roundup of queer friendly events in South Yorkshire. Ideal!
For now enjoy these extra snaps from The Kingdom Come, Enchanted Forest edition by Nelly Naylor.
