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There are four of us in our relationship – but it works
Xenia Taliotis meets drag queen brothers Tony Fran and Kevin Grogan – and alter egos Fantasy and Veronica
‘I’m finding rhinestones in places where the sun definitely doesn’t shine,” says Tony Grogan (known as Tony Fran for professional reasons). “It’s one of the hazards of being Fantasy, but I think the one I found last night doesn’t belong to her.”
Fantasy is Tony’s drag queen creation, a gorgeous confection of candyfloss-pink hair, six-inch sequinned skirts, seven-inch spangled heels, and perilously plunging tops. But this particular rhinestone has nothing to do with her. It’s from a costume belonging to Tony’s brother, Kevin – or more accurately, to his alter ego, Veronica Green, recently seen on television sashaying away from RuPaul’s Drag Race following a positive Covid diagnosis.
Sibling relationships can be fraught at the best of times, but do Tony and Kevin’s dual brother/sister personalities bring twice the strife? “We certainly interact differently when we are in drag than when we’re not,” says Kevin. “As brothers, we are really similar and while that can be bonding, it can also, at times, put us in situations where we try to outdo one another, even if it’s over something silly like gaming. Veronica and Fantasy are very different – plus they met as adults – so there’s none of the history of competing for parental attention or of being in the same school.”
Kevin says he can sometimes feel intimated by Fantasy’s audaciousness, while Tony admits to being more deferential to Veronica than he is to Kevin. “She commands – or is that demands – respect. I can be quite snappy with my brother, but when Veronica walks into the room, there’s none of that. I wouldn’t dare.”
“It’s a different dynamic,” adds Kevin. “Our relationship as brothers goes back more than 30 years (Kevin is 36, Tony 33), so we’re established in the roles we play within that context. When I created Veronica, I could break out of those confines. I could become the sassy, confident diva and leave behind the meek geek.”
They both feel there are four of them in their relationship, but the girls don’t coexist with Tony and Kevin. They are either Fantasy or Tony, Veronica or Kevin, and they respond differently to their sibling’s two personalities. Tony recently edited the video for Veronica’s debut single, Stars, and says that not for one second did he think it was Kevin singing. Once their wigs and faces are on, Kevin and Tony disappear.
As young children, growing up in Rochdale, they were best friends. “We lived in our own bubble,” says Tony. “We produced a comic together and the arch-villain was called Veronica – named after our baby sister. Veronica Green is also named after her, and our sister loves that. It makes her feel involved, as if she has played a part in the birth of Veronica.”
Their sister is seven years younger than Tony, and 10 years younger than Kevin, so when they were growing up, it did feel as if it was them and her. The boys were dressed the same, fed the same, treated the same, but as they grew, this created tensions. “I hated us being referred to as ‘the boys’, and I looked for ways to be different,” says Tony. “I was more bolshy, and that sometimes took me down unhealthy paths – but they were my paths, and I learnt from them.”
Kevin, smaller and more delicate than Tony, has always been taken for the younger brother. He was also a people-pleaser, a conformist, while Tony broke the rules. There were times, says Tony, when he felt the weight of having to “big brother” his big brother, but that reached a resolution of sorts when he returned from Spain, where he’d gone with his then boyfriend to open a bar.
“I was living in London when Tony came back to England,” says Kevin. “He would have been about 25, and he seemed so lost. I knew that if he went home to Rochdale, it would suck the life out of him. Our parents had totally accepted who we were, but when I thought of him living with them… I had visions of him spending all day in bed.
“So I had him live with me for bit, which helped repair some of the potholes that had started appearing in our relationship once we hit puberty.”
They’ve gone through periods when the emotional distance and sibling rivalry have been destructive. As the more outgoing of the two, Tony felt more comfortable with his sexuality, while Kevin tried to suppress his. Yet Kevin was the first to tell their parents. “That was galling,” says Tony. “I’d told Kevin I was gay when I was about 18 as a way of encouraging him to be honest with me, but instead he came out to our father, which made me look like the also-ran when I told our mum. It didn’t help that she thought I was attentionseeking or even just copying him.”
Their father, a retired roofer and builder, and their seamstress mother – she recently helped Veronica make one of her most spectacular ball gowns – have always been immensely proud and supportive of their children, and that extends to the wider family, too. “There are a lot of strong women in our family,” says Tony, “and they all love what we do. They respect us for following through with our dreams, for being who we want to be, and for pushing boundaries.”
Who was first to find drag? It seems it was a joint discovery. In the mid-1990s, aged 10 and seven, they were watching To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, a road movie about drag queens starring Patrick Swayze, and something clicked in both of them.
They say their brains made sense of the escapism, of playing with identity and gender, of becoming someone else. They checked the credits to see which of the characters were men and which were women.
“We somehow recognised something gj Veronica Green (in purple) is Kevin’s drag queen creation, while Fantasy is Tony’s in that film,” says Tony. “I think it showed us we could express ourselves in that way, too. I remember having a day off school and finding my mum’s wedding dress and putting it on and feeling transformed by it.”
They both began doing drag at around the same time – 10 or so years ago. The first incarnation of Fantasy first appeared in the Spanish bar Tony was running, while Kevin started by wearing drag for Halloween when he was working in Singapore. He enjoyed the drama of the night, and felt he had found something that would fulfil so many of his artistic and theatrical ambitions, but he also wanted to create a fully-rounded character. Over the next few years, Veronica Green gradually came into being.
Their creations are very different. For illustrator and scriptwriter Tony, the various incarnations of Fantasy are an expression of his experiences, a screen onto which he can project different aspects of his character.
Veronica, by contrast, is real – in as far as her narrative is consistent. She has a backstory and is a performer who hopes to conquer the world of entertainment. She is already a brand. Now she wants her own show.
And what’s next for Fantasy? Well… she’s going to audition for RuPaul’s Drag Race – and Veronica is backing her all the way. “She can’t do anything that would give Fantasy a competitive edge,” says Tony, “but she is being really supportive. She’s a terrific big sister – she’s given me lots of make-up tips and advice on how to carry myself.” In addition, Tony is also working on a sitcom that would star the two of them. “It’s about two siblings who love each other. But also hate each other.”
Veronica Green will be appearing in Drag Queens of Pop at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, May 17-19
‘There are a lot of strong women in our family and they all love what we do. They respect us’