Watch TV with Paul Flynn
The straight sell–if‘ straight’ is even close to the correct word here – of Drag SOS is a slice down the middle of Queer Eye and Rupaul’s Drag Race, the generational TV franchises that have turned once marginal cultures into the new mainstream. Five members of The Family Gorgeous, a whipsmart Manchester drag ensemble led by their erstwhile Drag Mother, Cheddar Gorgeous, travel in a superannuated Drag Wagon to the nooks and crannies of Great Britain.
They pick three participants prepared to unleash their inner drag star. This week: Mark, a buff drill sergeant personal trainer; Fleur, an underconfident mum with a history of life-threatening tumours; and David, a 30-something who’s spent most of his life as his mum’s carer, are let loose on the drag bag. If you want a drinking game to accompany this delightfully warm-hearted, tenderly parochial programme, try taking a shot every time someone says ‘fabulous’. You’ll be hammered by the first interval.
What separates Drag SOS from its closest forebears is a keen production eye for tracing forgotten Britain. So far, in two perfectly executed opening shows, we have travelled to the Brexit heartlands of Dover (62.2% leave) and Ipswich (58.3%). Tonight is the turn of lost Yorkshire seaside strip Scarborough (62%) – or ‘Scarbados’, as the locals lovingly dub it. Next week is Dudley (a whopping 67.6%). any assumptions about what might happen when you peep behind the net curtains of little Britain with the asbestostongued assistance of a metropolitan drag troupe are craftily undercut. hugh ‘lord Grantham’ Bonneville providing the voiceover lends proceedings an air of fitting nobility. he’s always had a touch of the vaudeville about him.
The Family Gorgeous have a succession of soft centres beneath their aggressive contouring, swiftly revealed to their willing pupils. Fleur gets the full Tim Burton treatment. Mark is teased into pink netting. For David, one suspects there is no going back after he’s mouthed along to I Am What I Am in full Jessica rabbit vamp gear. unlike Drag Race, there is no itchy competitive streak. unlike Queer Eye, the queens are not promising life changes, just a chance to step outside of yourself for a night. So Drag SOS makes good on the central tenet of its truest stars. as the five wander across Scarborough seafront making chit-chat about catching crabs, you cannot help but think: aren’t people gorgeous? Tuesdays, 10pm, Channel 4