- The woman who was late because she was having Simon’s baby
- Danny Beard and the hill with the weirdo dancers
- The Spice Girls fan who got a no from Mel B
- Five blokes in a dress and the question that broke the room
- Ginny Lemon, the Worcester sauce, and the bromance
- The band, the frock, and the camp arama
- What the talent shows got right and wrong
The woman who was late because she was having Simon’s baby
Levois walked into the Britain’s Got Talent audition room and opened with an apology. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I was having Simon’s baby.” Then she introduced herself, brought in the London Gay Big Band, and told the panel her real name was Chris. Four yeses. Through. The crowd was on their feet, and one judge called her contouring “insane” before adding, “You could be a superstar.”
That audition is one of several captured in a video that traces the talent-show careers of performers who would go on to compete on Drag Race UK. What the footage reveals is a pattern: drag performers walking into rooms built for singers and dancers, getting judged on whether their camp reads as authentic, and surviving on the strength of a voice, a band, or a sheer refusal to take the frock off.
Danny Beard and the hill with the weirdo dancers
Danny Beard told the BGT panel, “This is what I do full time.” No day job. No “I’m just here for fun.” A full-time drag performer, standing in a studio, feeling “a little bit out of my comfort zone.” The first audition was a Rocky Horror number. The judges liked it. Simon Cowell said he “liked the whole Rocky Horror thing.”
The X Factor run was less kind. Simon, who had buzzed the act, came back with a correction. “I admit I may have lost my mind a little bit earlier on about the dinosaurs, but I’m kinda got myself back together.” Then the verdict: “You standing like I don’t know how I can describe how you look now. Like a hill with all these weirdo dancers around you. You’re just singing such a random song. It just, I thought it was pointless.”
David Walliams disagreed. “I thought it was fabulous. It was stunning, dramatic, and sexy. And I think you were a lot like Simon. You were a bit like the sort of superhero version of Simon. By day, mild-mannered judge. By night, turn into Danny Beard. Fantastic.” Alicia Keys, who was on the panel, added that Danny’s voice was so powerful she “literally could just stand there and sing, and everything else is just a bonus.”
Danny took the mixed verdict in stride. “It’s all part of the journey, part of experience. It’s what I’m here for. I learn from the judges, get the critique, and be better.”
The Spice Girls fan who got a no from Mel B
Michael Moroli, 30, from Newcastle, walked into the X Factor audition as what he called “a pop star. All sparkly and blingy. With all the lights on stage, I’m just feeling like a giant disco ball.” He was also, by his own account, “the biggest Spice Girls fan in the world.” He told the panel he was “obsessed when [he was] a teenager” and really wanted a yes from Cheryl.
Cheryl gave him one, with a caveat. “I love the fact that you put in time on your outfit. You know, some people come in here, they look like they just rolled out of bed. I wouldn’t have chosen that song, but that’s personal.” Michael, desperate, said “I’m so sorry.” Cheryl waved it off. “No. Don’t say sorry. It’s your audition, babe.”
Mel B was less generous. “I just don’t know if enough people would buy your record.” Michael pushed back. “I think they would. I disagree. It’s 2014. It’s time for something fresh, something fun, and something fierce.” Mel held her ground. “I don’t think it was young and fun and fresh. I thought I was in, like, a tacky discotheca in Mangaloopy. And to be honest, everyone should have been standing partying with you. There was, like, a quarter of people partying. So I think you’ve really misjudged this one.”
He got through on two yeses. Simon was called away, so the bar was lower. In the backstage area, he performed “Born This Way” and told the camera, “I’m beautiful in my way, and God makes no mistakes.”
Five blokes in a dress and the question that broke the room
The Kit Kat Dolls introduced themselves as “a drag transvestite transsexual version of the Pussycat Dolls.” Simon Cowell, trying to keep his composure, cut to the chase. “Let’s cut to the quick. How many of you are blokes?” The answer: “We’re all blokes.” The room went quiet. Simon repeated it. “You’re all blokes?” They confirmed. He said “Okay” three times, as if processing the information.
Their names: Jamie Lane, Nat, Vanilla, Donna, Tony. Tony, it turned out, was “feeling a bit lonely” in the group. They performed a song-and-dance number that left Simon, by his own admission, speechless. “I absolutely knew I was gonna love you the minute you walked on stage. It’s completely up my street. I thought you’re all beautiful. You were fantastic.”
Another judge called them “the girl boy band that you have been waiting for.” The Kit Kat Dolls advanced. One of them, backstage, sang “I know it’s wrong. It just feels so right.”
Ginny Lemon, the Worcester sauce, and the bromance
Ginny Lemon introduced herself with a one-liner that stuck: “I’m Ginny Lemon. Fancy a slime.” She was from Worcester, which she noted “just like the sauce.” She was scared. “I actually thought one point, I can’t do this.”
The judges’ verdict was kind but pointed. “You’re a great visual performer. Just need to tone it down.” Another judge, addressing the act, said, “I wanna start by saying I love you, and I don’t wanna come between this bromance.”
The band, the frock, and the camp arama
Levois and the London Gay Big Band made it to the X Factor semifinal. The stakes were higher. “If we didn’t get through this, it would be a huge knock for the group. The future of the act really rests on how this goes.” Levois explained how the band came together: a venue, a last-minute call-in to replace a sick drag queen, and a night where “something happened” and they decided to keep playing. “We’ve all come together for the love of big band music. It just feels like really big extended family.”
The performance drew a standing ovation. One judge called it “absolute camp arama coming at your television.” Another said, “I always think I was born at the wrong time. That’s the kind of music I love. And if I could be you, I would swap position.” Simon, who had lent Levois a frock for the show, admitted, “A man wearing a dress is not normally the kind of thing I’d like. But it was brilliant.”
Levois summed up the whole enterprise in a line that could hang over any drag stage in the country: “We wanna be good old fashioned variety. The prize is the Royal Variety Show, and that’s why we’re here. We’re in it to win it.”
What the talent shows got right and wrong
These auditions capture a specific moment in British television, when drag was still a novelty act on the mainstream circuit rather than a genre with its own dedicated show. The judges’ reactions range from genuine delight to bewildered tolerance. Simon Cowell, who buzzed Danny Beard and then walked it back, who was speechless at the Kit Kat Dolls and then called Levois “unapologetic in what you do,” seems to have a complicated relationship with the material. He likes the spectacle. He is less sure about the audience.
The performers, for their part, treat the talent show as what it is: a room with a panel, a vote, and a chance to be seen. They bring big bands and Rocky Horror numbers and Pussycat Dolls choreography. They get critiqued on their contouring, their song choices, their “tacky discotheca” energy. They take the yeses, the nos, the “I wouldn’t have chosen that song, but that’s personal,” and they keep going.
The video assembles these moments into a single thread. Drag has always been variety. It has always been a man in a dress singing with a big band, or five blokes doing a Pussycat Dolls routine, or a full-time performer standing in front of a panel and saying, “This is what I do.” The talent shows gave them a stage. Drag Race UK gave them a home. The footage in between is the road trip, the rehearsal, the “I’m so sorry” to Cheryl, the “we’re all blokes” that made Simon say “okay” three times.
Watch the full video for every audition, every verdict, and every moment a judge lost the plot.
