Queens everywhere! That’s more than just the title of the season finale stomper from RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11, it’s also the mission statement from the team behind the Emmy-winning, game-changing reality-competition hit. World of Wonder is here to turn the literal world into a wonder through the campy, filthy, gorgeously queer art of drag. Everything’s going according to plan, too, with Drag Race Thailand up and running, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK hitting the runway in just a few short weeks, and editions set in Canada and Australia already in the works.

But let’s talk about Drag Race UK for a minute, because unlike all the other international spinoffs, the English edition will have a very familiar flavor to fans of the OG. That’s because RuPaul herself is hosting the merry festivities with Michelle Visage by her side. Are you gagging?! The series, which airs on BBC Three in the UK, will be delivered directly and with no delay to US fans via World of Wonder’s streaming service, WOW Presents Plus. And no need to fiddle with cable subscriptions or buy a season pass or the episodes you miss on-demand, either, because WOW Presents Plus will have the exclusive, in-season streaming rights to Drag Race UK in the US.

Ahead of this major moment in Drag Race herstory, Decider caught up with World of Wonder co-founders and Drag Race franchise co-creators Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato at DragCon NYC. Below, they spill the tea on the origins of Drag Race UK, new judges Graham Norton and Alan Carr, and the season they proudly call a “cavalcade of filth.”

Decider: What was the origin of Drag Race UK?

Randy Barbato: From day one, the UK was a market that we felt Drag Race should live. We, World of Wonder and RuPaul, have a history on working with British broadcasts.

Bailey: Sometime last century, one of our Christmas shows was called RuPaul’s Christmas Ball, and it was on Channel 4 in the UK—

Barbato: And RuPaul was on Manhattan Cable, our very first series. We had a series called Manhattan Cable that RuPaul was one of the reporters for.

Bailey: So his star has always been bright in the UK, so we spent a long time trying to set it up over there.

Did you have to rework the show at all to translate it to the UK? What sets the new series apart from the original?

Bailey: Drag is different in the States to the way it is in the UK, and drag has a long history in the UK. It’s been in pubs and at the end of a pier, and it’s been in sort of in comedy and slapstick. It’s different, it’s got its own flavor, and that really informed the show. It made the show very different.

Barbato: A lot of the format of the show, we did not reinvent. It translated. The show is all about the cast. They’re the stars, and RuPaul, obviously. And we knew Ru would translate, but it really comes down to are the members of the cast stars and will they be relatable? And that became abundantly clear the first day of taping, like in the control room we were all like, “I’m in love!” We fell in love.

And I think from that point on, I mean there were the logistics, but we really didn’t have that much to worry about. We prepared in pre-production like we would do any of our seasons, our showrunner in the UK was one of our co-EPs who worked in the US. All of us, including [Drag Race producer] Tom Campbell, who is one of the creative voices of the show, we were all there. It wasn’t that much of a leap. The other big difference is [the UK queens] do have some of their own sayings and stuff—

Bailey: All new!

Barbato:—that’s fun also just to watch Ru discover, which happens in the show. Sometimes Ru will be like, “Tuppence?!”

Bailey: Do you know what “touching your tuppence” is? I have no idea, I’m British and I don’t know what it is.

The queens themselves have said that they’re campier and dirtier than they’re American counterparts.

Barbato: They are dirtier.

Drag Race is not a tame show in America. It has some fun filthiness to it. Were there moments during Drag Race UK that shocked you?

Bailey: Absolutely, from the very first moment we started taping. We were like, “Good lord, this is going to be on the BBC?”

Barbato: Every now and then Ru would turn and look at the camera and say, “You’re watching the BBC.” [Laughs]

Bailey: Cavalcade of filth, that’s what I would say. Flood of perversion.

Barbato: But sophisticated filth, that’s the thing. They get away with it because they’re really loving creatures but they’re also really smart queens.

Bailey: Whip smart.

Barbato: So none of it is—what’s the word I’m looking for? Gratuitous. It’s not gratuitous.

Bailey: The British have always had a love of double entendre, of corny puns, of deliberately bad jokes, and sort of bad taste and off-color humor is all a part of that. It’s ultimately is a celebration. It’s not cruel or unkind or, as Randy says, gratuitous. It’s all in fun. I mean have you ever heard of Mrs. Slocombe’s pussy?

It’s from a very famous British sitcom series called Are You Being Served? One of the lead characters was this fabulous woman who was basically a drag queen because she always had purple hair, and she was called Mrs. Slocombe, and she was always talking about her pussy. And it was a huge hit!

How did you settle on Graham Norton and Alan Carr as the alternating judges? It feels like a perfect fit.

Bailey: Well, there you go. [Laughs] It was like, “Who else?”

Barbato: They were, from the get-go, they were our dream guests. There was no list. There were two names, and we were gobsmacked that they both wanted to do it. And we knew that they were both fans of the show and followed the show, and Graham Norton’s been on the show. And we’re friends with Graham, and now we’re friends with Alan. So, there were no other choices. Actually, I think that if they hadn’t agreed, I don’t know if we’d have had anybody else. There were no other people on the list. Two names, and we got ’em. And they were a delight, they were a joy.

Drag Race UK will air on BBC Three overseas and it’ll stream simultaneously in the United States on your streaming service, WOW Presents Plus. Was that the plan all along?

Barbato: Our intent was for us to always retain the streaming rights for this because we’re building WOW Presents Plus.

Bailey: Because WOW Presents Plus is ultimately the home for all things Drag Race. You know, you could watch Drag Race Thailand. It’s on WOW Presents Plus.

Now that there will be British queens, do you foresee a time where future seasons of Drag Race All Stars would pull from the international versions? Are these queens fair game?

Barbato: I think they are fair game, and yet there are so many phenomenally talented American queens. It’s crazy every year thinking about the cast of All Stars because we’re in love with too many of these queens, like we need two All Star seasons per year to really do it justice. Because the reality is, A: everyone’s a winner who’s on Drag Race. B: if you survive it—it’s such a hard show to do, people don’t understand how much hard work—so if you go through it, you’ve gone through the bootcamp of drag. So many of them go on to become much bigger stars and we’re always trying to figure out more vehicles for them.

Will some of the UK queens get their own spinoff shows on WOW Presents Plus, similar to UNHhhh or Gimme Some Shuga and the like?

Bailey: Yes.

Barbato: Wait ’til you see the “Snatch Game” episode of Drag Race UK. You are gonna gag, I’m just telling you right now.



Barbato: That is true but it does not matter.

If it’s a queen doing it right, it doesn’t matter. Because funny is funny.

Barbato: It will be interesting to see the Google searches of that night.

Bailey: I think a huge component of Drag Race is bringing back stars who may have lapsed from the limelight, or have been forgotten too soon.

Gay history comes back—

Bailey: Yeah. Putting the record straight, as it were, in terms of who’s who in the star firmament, because Hollywood doesn’t always get it right, you know?

Just one last question: if you could describe Drag Race UK in one word, what would that word be?

Bailey: Filth!

Barbato: Everything.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK premieres on BBC Three WOW Presents Plus on October 3

Where to watch RuPaul's Drag Race UK