"It’s really cool trying to be a man; in a way, it makes me feel a bit weaker" temi wilkey

There’s nothing particularly radical-looking about High Barnet on this sleepy Sunday afternoon. As I make my way down the street, the north London suburb seems deserted; the only characters in sight are a listless young man in a grey hoodie and an elderly gentleman carefully cleaning his car. I wonder what they’d make of the rehearsal taking place a few houses down.

I ring the doorbell and am ushered in by a young woman who is both self-assured and slightly flustered. The house is bursting with activity. The strains of a close harmony vocal rehearsal drift into the kitchen from an adjoining room, “Ladies and gentlemen… welcome!”, while dance routines are being fine-tuned elsewhere. I’ve entered the world of Pecs, an all-female drag collective made up of ten Cambridge students and graduates. The woman who answered the door is its co-founder, Temi Wilkey.

“I was plagued by the conundrum,” Temi recalls, “about why drag queens are much bigger than drag kings. Why, when you think of drag, do you think of drag queen immediately before king?” At a party in November, Temi suggested to Celine Lowenthal that they put on their own drag king show, and with her enthusiastic response the Pecs project was born.

Queer writings informed the Pecs cast jackson caines

With Temi and Celine as co-directors and the line-up now finalised, the show promises a mixture of ensemble dances, solo numbers and sketches. Boxers, ballet dancers and Justin Timberlake (a.k.a. Thrustin’ Limbersnake) all make an appearance.

While doing their research, Temi and Celine seized upon the writings of queer theorist Judith Halberstam. “One thing she points out that we thought about a lot is that masculinity is considered somehow neutral,” explains Celine. “Dressing up as a male isn’t really considered to be a costume in and of itself. We’ve discovered that that’s not the case at all, and that there are a huge variety of masculinities that can be performed: feminine masculinities, masculine femininities and so on.”

Not everyone grasps this concept immediately, as Temi well knows. “I remember mentioning the show to somebody, and they said, ‘Oh, women in drag - isn’t that just women wearing clothes?’” This elicits a big laugh from the group; they’ve put in enough time and effort to know drag kinging is a bit more complicated than that.

In workshops, Isabel Adomakoh-Young tells me, they’ve had to pay close attention to the nuances that distinguish male physicality. “It’s been really interesting to just, say, hold your shoulders in a different way. You actually have to keep doing that continuously, and it’s amazing watching other people do it because they’re sending out an entirely different message.”

Masculinity is often considered somehow neutral jackson caines

Most members of Pecs cut their teeth acting in straight theatre at school and university, but some have experience with circus, burlesque and physical theatre. Pecs isn’t Isabel’s first foray into drag. “Every year at summer camp we’d put on a play, and I was always cast as a man. I played Captain Hook, which was really interesting because Hook’s such a strutting, particular archetype of masculinity. My friend, who was very camp even as a boy, played Smee, and so that was the first time that I really came across the gender paradigms and how you could play with that.”

All of the performers agree that the appeal of drag is rooted in a deeply-held curiosity in their own bodies. This highly personal aspect of drag has proven something of a revelation, explains Rosie Potts. “It not only opens your eyes to how you’re behaving, but suddenly you look around and you feel like you can look at society in a completely different way. You’re looking around and you can see everyone’s body language, everyone’s outfit choices.”

Jessica O’Driscoll-Breen makes the point that drag kinging can be a form of liberation, even rebellion. Jessica grew up in rural Ireland, an environment she found restrictive. “Girls have to be very girly, boys have to be very stoic. I was always encouraged to be that perfect little girl. When I moved away from home, I began to question that and look into queerness and things like that. It’s really cool trying to be a man; in a way, it makes me feel a bit weaker, because I’m not as good at being a man as I am at being a woman, but in another way it makes me feel more powerful.”

Victoria Veronica Aubrey insists that even in more liberal societies, the pressure to conform to gender norms is strong. “Everyone is brought up in those gendered terms of masculine and feminine. It’s difficult in our society to be gender-queer or transgender because it’s not accepted; having that fluidity is something that people are so violent against. I suppose part of putting on this show is to raise awareness.”

It’s not just women who are the victims of gender conformity. Part of Pecs’s raison d’être is to show how men too have to deal with ‘body-monitoring’ - the subconscious need to appear outwardly acceptable to society. Isabel describes an act in the show which features two characters out of Grease who are obsessed with looking cool, constantly posturing in their car and checking their quiffs. “As much as the act is mocking that, it’s also lamenting the fact that they feel that they have to do that in order to be attractive.” Their performance on Battersea Barge is not the end of Pecs’s journey; all members of the collective have expressed an interest in working together again, so this might well be just the beginning. If these performers have their way, perhaps drag kings won’t be playing second fiddle to the queens for much longer.

In the meantime, they are ambitious about the potential for their show to remind people that when it comes to their gender identity, they have the right to shop around. In Isabel’s words, “It’s not necessarily that we need to be different, but let’s just check what other options there are before we buckle down. There’s no reason to assume that this is the best way to be.”

(This article was edited on August 8th 2020 to update one of the performer's name).