Nottingham’s drag scene has exploded in recent years with many new characters. We meet Doxxie Phmorisher and Benthic Zone to talk about queer venues, developing drag characters and what to expect from their show, Nightmare! Nightmare! Kill! Kill!
If you have experienced Nottingham’s drag scene, then you will know how lucky we are to have a wide range of incredible performers showcasing every type of drag. It’s also steeped in tradition that goes back further than you can imagine, with the earliest mentions in Nottingham newspapers from 1888.
Even with the closure of a lot of LGBTQ+ venues in recent years (RIP Propaganda, Bar 27, the G.O.A.T…) our drag scene has thrived.
“With the lack of venues, the Nottingham drag scene is a bit like a cockroach, to be honest. It takes a lot to kill it," Benthic Zone said. "Due to the lack of these venues, the drag acts that have popped up are the more out-there, creative people doing it in interesting ways. I feel there are more alternative drag performers in Nottingham, and we are known for that.”
Benthic Zone has been hosting their show, Nightmare! Nightmare! Kill! Kill! at the Lord Roberts in the cellar bar since last year. A drag variety show that combines everything from 'bee' costumes (no, you read that correctly) to pirates and puppets. She is joined by Derbyshire’s own cybergirl, Doxxie Phisher, who has become a permanent co-host after the two performed so well together, and the show was born after Benthic Zone realised they wanted more creative control over performances.
“I wanted to run my own show with no compromise. I wanted to do my vision, but every time I would have a different guest who had creative input. The third event, I had the wonderful Doxxie Phisher and realised, when we were working together, that I never had to make any compromises,” she explained.
“I thought, oh no, we work too well together! I’m going to have to take her on board fully. So from that point on, there have been two of us with a different guest each time.”
I used to watch Drag Race way back when, but never saw myself doing anything like it. When lockdown lifted, I thought, I need to go out into the world and into my local queer community
The development of a drag character is a delicate one that takes time, trial and error with just the right amount of sequins. For Doxxie, their drag began from a love of science fiction and cyberpunk.
“I was transgender already, but I was able to abstract it a bit more. The character was going to be a woman, but she had to be something else. My interests are cyberpunk media and sci-fi, so if I make her more of a machine, then I can play around with make-up to look less human in that way,” she said.
Benthic Zone developed their drag character over time. “I started off trying to be middle of the road, slightly quirky, but following the other drag queens. I would avoid going full fem as I found out later, I’m transgender. I had been trying and failing to do femme, so from that path, Benthic Zone became an abstract thing.”
“I feel like Benthic Zone is myself out of drag but 20% crueller. It's a more amplified version of myself.”
Both performers believe in the power of local drag and seeing performers live. It’s one thing to watch Drag Race or Boulet Brothers, but another to see exceptional performers like Gladrags or DirtyFilthySexy in action.
“I used to watch Drag Race way back when, but never saw myself doing anything like it. When lockdown lifted, I thought, I need to go out into the world and into my local queer community," Benthic explained. "I went to a Drag Race viewing party to meet other queer people, but during the intervals, they had performances from local queens.”
“Having that context of seeing on screen, then the stage, having those two together really put it into perspective. I thought I should do this. I can try this.”
Nottingham has given us some incredible drag in recent years, including Bin Bag, Mordecai Du Gitton and Axolotl Full Throttle. The latter of which will join Doxxie Phisher and Benthic Zone on stage at the Lord Roberts cellar bar stage on Thursday 11 September.
Doxxie and Benthic explain that the team at Lord Roberts has been incredibly supportive of the show.
“We really wanted to work in a cellar!” Benthick joked. “Since I moved to Nottingham, Lord Roberts has been such a consistently great venue, especially when the current owners took it over. I was shopping around different venues when I had a meeting with Craig, and he seemed genuinely excited to have us.”
“I’d not had that enthusiasm before with someone running a venue as they usually play hardball, but he seemed to really want to have something like that there.”
So what can we expect from the Nightmare! Nightmare! Kill! Kill! show? The answer is…. quite literally anything.
“Every time it ends, the host and the guests always do a duet to end the show. It’s now all three of us together to send it off with a bang. The first time we did this, we did You’re Out of Touch by Hall and Oates, where I was dressed as a big bee,” Benthic Zone said.
“I was in my black and yellow outfit as well, so we were nice and matchy-matchy. It was very cute. I think my favourite had to be the pirate show where we used ‘professional pirate’ from the Muppets Treasure Island, where we changed the lyrics to be about transitioning,” Doxxie added.
“At another show, we were fully on stage together to do Dare to Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic, which became one of my favourite performances. We were out of time most of the time, but it was silly and, not to be corny, but we were daring to be stupid. We really were. I love it.”
Tickets are available here for the Nightmare! Nightmare! Kill! Kill! Show at Lord Roberts on the 11th of September. Doors open at 8pm
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