A British drag diva known as Juno Birch, who boasts a huge global following, is just about to kick off a tour of America and will be coming to Charlotte for a performance at the Blumenthal August 6.
As most of us know, drag performers come in all shapes, sizes, colors and genders. The most common garden variety version is typically a gay cisgender male who enjoys dressing up in female attire, scads of makeup, a wig or three and dancing around on stage in a nightclub while lip-syncing to a popular dance tune.
Then there are the more experimental types that might try something like a skirt made of pork chops and a shaved head with drawn on hair while brandishing a chainsaw and lip syncing a punk or rockabilly tune from the past.
Less common, but still a presence, are drag kings. Usually a cisgender female that leans towards the butch side, typically performs as a pop culture male icon and, once again, lip syncing, likely to songs made famous by legends like Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
All those are just stereotypes, of course, and the varieties are endless.
Birch is an anomaly on the drag spectrum: she’s not exactly any of the aforementioned character studies.
Her look is a blend of pastel skin she calls alien, usually painted in blue or pink along with yellow hair and retro sunglasses.
Says Birch of her stage persona: “[She’s] a Martian spy woman, meets the Muppets, meets a 1960s housewife, meets Squidward, meets the ‘Fifth Element’ the sixth element and the seventh element. All the elements, darling.”
While not on stage, Birch lives daily as a transgender woman. A few tidbits about her personal life: she was born in Manchester, England on December 25, 1993. She came out as trans around the age of 13 or 14 and began hormone therapy at 16. She was 22 in 2015 when she had gender affirming surgery.
Birch’s professional career began in December 2018. She points to multiple individuals and films as key influences in the character that she has created.
Among those, and likely the one most fans recognize first, is the film, “Mars Attacks” and the role billed simply as “Martian Spy Girl” played by actress Lisa Marie Smith.
One look at Birch and its clear the base of her stage character borrows heavily from the alien creature created by film director Tim Burton for the classic sci-fi comedy from 1996. But that’s not to say the character isn’t also 100 percent Birch, combining her own creative skills with an appreciation for the artistry of others.
Among the other additional influences she cites are 1960s fashion model Twiggy, 1980s television series “The Smurfs,” the 1980 camp classic film “Mommie Dearest,” the 1975 sci-fi film “The Stepford Wives,” actress Jennifer Coolidge, film directors John Waters and Tim Burton, the video game The Sims and additional films such as “Beetlejuice” (1988) and “Death Becomes Her” (1992).
Add all of that together and it might leave you scratching your head. What would a stage show by Juno Birch look like?
In an interview with the American publication Paper magazine last year, she talked about the show that kicks off July 23 in St Louis, Missouri, with multiple stops along the way, including Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia before she lands in Charlotte on August 6.
“It’s going to be a theater show and it’s basically a trip into the world inside Juno’s head on stage. So it’s going to be very chaotic. There’s going to be some lobsters, some Judith Louise babies. Some cabaret and live singing and dancing. It’s going to be chaos. The whole show is based on television, so there’s lots of fake commercials and ’60s television.”
She elaborated further on her show with the UK publication Attitude in an interview this past June,
“[The show is] a big step up from last year, that was a lot of lip syncing, one after the other, with a little chit-chat in the middle. This is more a proper stand-up comedy show with puppeteering. There’s lots of puppets, lots of props things like that. I’m singing, as well. I’ve got dancers, it’s all a big gorgeous production. I’m so excited. A lot of people know me from the internet and youtube, but my passion lies always on stage. That’s a comfort to be on stage. I’m at heart a bit of a theater child, it’s just what I love doing.”
Birch also talked about the differences between drag performance in the United States and the United Kingdom.
“There is a big, big difference in drag from UK to America,” she said in the interview with Attitude. “UK drag was born in the pantomimes, whereas America was born in the ballrooms and the pageants; they stem from different things. It’s different in different parts of America, too. West Coast drag is completely different from East Coast drug, which I love. It’s the same in the UK, actually. The humor is different but I’m lucky. I get away with it. When I go over they already know me from being stupid and telling jokes on YouTube and know what humor to expect.”
The Juno Show takes Birch to 18 different locations across the United States in just 30 days. That’s a hectic schedule, although it does allow for a little bit of downtime here and there. In the interview with Paper, she was queried about how she planned to keep up the pace.
“Red Bull and a Prosecco,” she responded. “It’s like that a lot on tour, because sometimes you get sick, sometimes you’re sleep deprived because you’ve been on flights on show days, and sometimes you really want to throw up, but you’ve got a put your corset on and your pads and you’ve got to go on and you’ve got to tell jokes and everything.
“What I’ve learned from doing the tour is that even if you feel like you’re going to throw up right before you go on stage or you feel a bit ill or you’ve not been to the toilet properly or you’re not going to sleep, once you step on stage the adrenaline will carry you through it.
While most of the Juno Show presentations are taking place in parts of the country that aren’t going head to head with drag queens and trans individuals, seven of Birch’s shows are in southern destinations, including St. Louis, Charlotte and Atlanta. The other four are all in Texas: Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas.
They’re all states where Trans and drag bans have either been passed or are currently under consideration. How does a UK drag performer feel about taking her show to places that might not welcome her?
“It’s definitely scary,” she told Attitude. “I’m Trans as well as a drag queen, so, sometimes I can’t hide it out of drag. It’s almost scary being in public. When you go on these tours you’re almost protected, you’ve got the tour bus etc. I’m not going to lie, it is scary. No matter how illegal they make drag, no one’s ever going to stop a drag queen from dressing up and looking glamorous. That’s all we’re doing at the end of the day.
“We’re entertaining people, making people happy. No drag queen is harming anybody. It’s an absolute load of bollocks. In the ‘90s, they had Dame Edna advertising chocolate fingers, no one batted an eyelid, but now it’s all a problem? They think they’re clever when they say things like biology, man, woman and all that shite. Really they’re just idiots. We’re just trying to have fun, just having a laugh. This is people’s lives. You’ve got to have a laugh.”
Tickets for the Juno Birch Show are available at junobirchlive.com