Cardiff drag queen Marmalade heads to Drag Race final
Stephen Price
Welsh drag queen, Marmalade, has celebrated making it to the coveted RuPaul’s Drag Race Final at Spillers in Cardiff – the world’s oldest record store.
Following a roast that held no punches and left many a jaw on the floor, Marmalade proved her comedy chops by being outgunned only by La Voix, Marmalade’s greatest rival for the crown, Marmalade impressed the panel of judges with a self-made outfit on the theme of vinyl – a gramophone inspired dress which RuPaul described as ‘exquisite’
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25-year-old Marmalade is fast building a reputation as one of Wales’ leading drag queens, impressing judges with her sewing skills and looks which have consistently impressed Ru Paul and fellow judge, Michelle Visage.
She’s also not the only Welsh performer to slay the competition, with Wales-born, Scouse-adopted The Vivienne taking home the first UK crown, who along with Newport’s Tayce has become a familiar face on television screens ever since.
Welsh queens
For the first time ever, perhaps following complaints about lack of Welsh representation last year, this year saw two Welsh queens compete together, with Bala’s Actavia representing the north, and proudly using the Welsh language at every given opportunity.
Marmalade, recently told Behnaz Akhgar on BBC Radio Wales that Ru has a long time love for Wales, sharing: “I discovered about Ru – she visits Barry fairly often,”
“She’s got a friend in Barry and she visits every year. Maybe she visits for the log flume – I have no idea. But she visits Wales… I was surprised at least. I didn’t expect it.”
Of her fellow Welsh season six co-star, she added: “Before I went, I was like ‘I better be the only Welsh queen. It can only be me, it better only be me.”
“I remember turning and seeing Actavia and just thinking, like, they could not have picked a more perfect Welsh cohort to share this with me. Truly, I was so glad she was there. I’ll say it now – she’s easily my best friend from the season.”
“I was excited in general as well because it’s the first time Drag Race has had two Welsh queens, so for it to be Marmalade, I was just buzzing.”
Glamour
Marmalade told the BBC Media centre: “I would describe my drag as Hollywood glamour, all wrapped up in a gorgeous Welsh sense of stupidity. When I was sixteen, I saw the most fabulous photo of the Hollywood starlet, Lana Turner in the film The Prodigal and that was it!
“All I wanted from then was to become that image. My favourite leading ladies are Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Faye Dunaway, Barbara Streisand. Also, two of my all-time favourites are Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her. I like to think that I give vintage aesthetic with a modern twist!”
Representing Wales has been very important to her. She shared: “I am so excited to represent my hometown of Cardiff, and my home country. There’s so much talent in our small but mighty nation and you’re going to see it right here!”
Spillers
Spillers was an inspired choice for Marmalade’s heading-to-the-final celebrations following her success in the runway and its vinyl theme.
The iconic Cardiff store was founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller at its original location in Queens Arcade, where the shop specialised in the sale of phonographs, wax phonograph cylinders and shellac phonograph discs and also sold and repaired musical instruments.
In the early 1920s, Spiller’s son Edward took over the running of the business and, with the aid of the popular accordionist and bandleader Joe Gregory, sold musical instruments alongside the pre-recorded music. In the late 1940s the shop moved around the corner to a larger premises on The Hayes.
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In 2006, the shop’s future was made uncertain when the site rent was increased by Spillers’ landlords, who stated that they were keen for the shop to survive.
A local campaign to save the shop was initiated, including a petition initiated by Owen John Thomas (then the Assembly Member for South Wales Central) and supported by members of the Welsh Assembly, Manic Street Preachers and Columbia Records.
In 2010 Spillers moved to the nearby Morgan Arcade where it continues to flourish and play a pivotal role in the music scene for both listeners and performers across Wales.
All episodes of the new series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK are available to watch on BBC iPlayer. The highly anticipated final will air at 8pm on BBC iPlayer and 9pm on BBC Three on Thursday 28 November.
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No comment
Spare me!
You clicked on it…
You wanted me to.
You wanted me to! I’ve no problem with you writing about this stuff: I just find the fetishisation of men dressing up as grotesque caricatures of women distasteful and misogynistic.
Why “spare me”? I’m a liberal, I have no interest in this but each to their own, good for them it’s no harm.
You vote for the far-right reactionary Reform UK. Why as a voter for that party do you apparently have an issue with people who don’t adhere to your norms?
I find a man dressing up as a grotesque, hyper-sexualised caricature of a woman to be distasteful and deeply misogynistic. If the same were done to lampoon, for example, a black person, I’m sure you’d have enough to say about it. Why such antics are lauded and celebrated is beyond me.
Drag queens are lampooning women? Pantomime season must make you furious. But thanks for giving me an insight into the thoughts of those on the far-right who appear constantly offended by difference.
Yes Llyn, drag queens lampoon women: did that only just occur to you?
Wow so the far-right self declared freedom loving free speech advocates in Wales now find pantomime dames offensive and upsetting.
I’m genuinely surprised that your masculinity is fragile enough to be even slightly bothered by someone in drag.
I have no problem with whatever sexual fetishes you might enjoy Gary – I’d just rather they were acted out behind closed doors.
The supposed free thinking, free speech advocates who want censorship of behaviours of which they are so very easily offended.
I’d just rather garish sexual fetishists weren’t championed, televised, and encouraged to parade the streets where families and children go about their business. I don’t care what you like to do behind closed doors.
Have you ever seen women on a beach, A Kardashian any where, a women’s fashion magazine, a fashion runway; or any where else women are seen in public? Does that offend children? No, they don’t care, as long as the person is kind children don’t care. Why do you so much? Just look away or keep your head up your ass and you won’t see anything out of the norm. Have a boring life. We don’t care, really we don’t.
Robert this is someone who says he finds “a man dressing up as a grotesque, hyper-sexualised caricature of a woman to be distasteful and deeply misogynistic” yet votes for and supports a party – Reform UK – who are happy to have as an MP James McMurdock who was jailed for repeatedly kicking his girlfriend and whose leader Farage has been pictured smiling with Andrew Tate and says he is an “important voice”.
No problem which way people chose to handle a predicament they had no choice to be born into, if it helps them and there is no harm to others.
It did however make me think I’d mistakenly opened WalesOnline and their plumeting standards of journalism now being replaced by irrelevant click-baiting.
Attention seeking is to a degree acceptable in youngsters, striving for acknowledgement that further encourages their education to a successful and contented life. But when this escalates into troubled adoration craving in adults, only concerns about this should requires the attention from quality platforms such as Nation.Cymru.
The 20th century had the Black&White Minstrels the 21st has drag queens.
In time they will both be viewed as equally offensive.
I was going to enter as “Marmite” but on second thoughts that would not be to everyone’s taste. I do however have a friend in Barry that I almost never visit so that’s definitely in my favour.