Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

Paula is also currently working on her first book, When We Ruled: The Rise and Fall of Twelve Queens. Billed as “a book that will give voice to the women warriors and regents across the African continent often demoted to a footnote in history”, it will be published in hardback in 2024. 

As well as that research, and her work as a journalist, Paula (yep, she's busy!) is the creator of Black Queer Travel Guide, to help Black queer people travel around the world more safely. 

It’s amazing how much there is in our very recent past that’s at risk of being lost to the wider world without academics like Paula recording it - have a listen.

Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

In the combination of her own life experiences, her career as a psychologist and in LGBTQ domestic abuse services, and with the groundbreaking queer Asian night Club Kali, Rita has created something very special indeed.

That’s an incredible legacy for one club night to have. But it has a dynamic future as well as an important past - and we started there…

Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

This panel was first published as a LIVE Twitter Spaces conversation, so this is an edited collection of the best bits - with all the boring technical issues edited out!

If you haven’t read it yet, its fairly revolutionary perspective is that not only have people always been obsessed with sex, but that British people in the past weren’t necessarily as narrow minded about sex, sexuality, and gender as you might think. Which I found a really hopeful message. 

From his upbringing in North London (in a future celebrity enclave, not far from Rachel Stevens and Amy Winehouse) to his crowd of adoring female fans, the Rinderettes, Rob Rinder had so much to say. 

A rare male interviewee, we reflected on the relationship between women and queer men and what we can offer each other. 

Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

Content warning: this episode includes discussion of conversion therapy, suicide, and child abuse.

Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

A true Renaissance woman, Bishi found herself on the London queer scene at a very young age, and became part of the legendary club kid Leigh Bowery’s band Minty. She has since created music across a dizzying array of instruments and genres, and written powerfully about her experience of being a British Asian woman in the music industry. I know you’ll love her as much as I did. 

You can find Bishi at bishi.co.uk and (pandemic permitting) performing at venues all over. Her single Let My Country Awake is out now. 

Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

Cardiff queen Victoria is the drag daughter of season two’s Tia Kofi. Inspired by pantomime dames and gay icons, her drag is as British as afternoon tea. But this camp classic also represents the future of the artform, uplifting ‘AFAB’ queens and drag kings as she goes. 

You can find Victoria on Twitter @VictoriaScone, on victoriascone.com, and on BBC iPlayer every Thursday night at 7pm.

Creator & host: Alice Beverton-Palmer

Producer & editor: Laura Blake

Olivia is also a Stonewall Young Campaigner alum. During her degree at the University of Leeds, she co-organised the award-winning ‘Why is My Curriculum White: Decolonising Geographies’ panel event and worked with peers and faculty to decolonise the curriculum. You can find her on Twitter @livkiera, and on her blog queerblackbabe.

As a queer Black woman herself, Sharmaine believes that storytelling creates the dialogue we need to build a more inclusive world. I quite agree.

Her own life story is quite something, from homeless teenager to Berlin bookshop owner and now, one of the leading lights of British publishing.

Sharmaine is also the first Black interviewee on The Dorothy Project. That’s not a track record I’m proud of, and I’m determined to improve that ratio from now on.

After years of fundraising for AIDS causes in the 1980s and 1990s, she was ‘burnt out’, but has since returned and is now a member of ACT-UP New York. 

Asked to reflect on her experiences by a Chicago LGBTQ newspaper, she was inspired to find other women who’d contributed during the AIDS crisis, and her book ‘Fag Hags, Divas, and Moms’ is the result. (And yes, we talk about that title!)

We got stuck in to being the ‘token woman’, the difference between gay (‘as in…’) and queer, and performing queer work for wider audiences.

Don’t miss Sex Shells at The Glory next Friday, March 6th 2020. After that, you can see their full show at the Spiegeltent on the Southbank, as part of the Underbelly Festival on April 23rd.

London Lighthouse - most famously visited by Princess Di - offered comprehensive, compassionate care to people dying of AIDS and their loved ones. 

Following the closure of the Lighthouse residential unit, Flick became the HIV psychiatric liaison nurse at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She identified the initial crystal meth problem in London and was instrumental in setting up what has become the highly successful chemsex and club drug clinic. 

Six months into their relationship, Flick and her partner Professor Chloe Orkin were seconded to Botswana to set up the country’s Antiretroviral Programme. Due to Botswana’s laws, Flick and Chloe weren’t able to be out as lesbians or a couple throughout their six months there. (Chloe features in Season One of The Dorothy Project!)

Flick took medical retirement in 2011, and now volunteers with her three (ADORABLE) dogs as a pet therapist in hospices and hospitals in London.

If you’re an LGBTQ person worried about your drug or alcohol use, or that of a friend or family member, then there’s plenty of support on offer:
In London: Antidote
In Manchester: The LGBT Foundation
In Birmingham: Birmingham LGBT 
If you’re straight or don’t live in one of these cities, there are drug and alcohol services provided by every local authority - you’ll be able to find out where yours is from your local authority’s website.

We talked about what makes a Cock Destroyer, Sophie reveals her fave of the pair’s viral videos, and pays tribute to the sisterhood and aesthetic they share with drag queens including Trixie Mattel.

A member of the LGBTQ community herself, Sophie also opens up about her experience of growing up pansexual, how things have changed, and the importance of celebrating queer life around her teenage son.

And what a way to start! Simon Jones’s life has taken him from being a teenage Madonna stan in a tiny Norfolk village, to winning a teen magazine talent search, and now shaping the careers of gay icons such as Geri Halliwell and Jade Thirlwall. In his eponymous PR company, he’s worked with multiple Spice Girls, All Saints, Louise Redknapp, Dannii Minogue, Pussycat Dolls and Tulisa to name a few.

We talked about how pop icons speak to their queer fanbases, and how being gay has helped Simon guide his clients, as well as his favourite career memories so far (...this is the man who stuck the promotional message on Geri Halliwell’s horse as she rode down Old Compton Street.)

Corinne regularly shoots the world’s most famous drag queens, from Alyssa Edwards to Bianca Del Rio, but she’s equally at home capturing London’s alternative drag scene. Her work foregrounds and celebrates drag kings and non-binary performers, and she’s also part of the pan-Asian drag collective The Bitten Peach. She also shoots Alice’s club night Push The Button!

We talked about her Trojan horse tactics to bring an LGBT story with a message of acceptance to the biggest possible audience, complete with huge stars including Sonam and Anil Kapoor.

You can find Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga on Netflix, in the UK and around the world.

With a gay father and godfathers, Ana is a born Dorothy. She fulfilled her destiny in lavish style - moving to San Francisco as a teenager and then later New York City, where she performed at and hosted burlesque and drag nights. 

She met Jake Shears while he was dressed as his character "Jason the Amazing Back-Alley Late Term Abortion" and the rest was history. Scissor Sisters came together shortly afterwards and became a global sensation, filling arenas and Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage. Their album ‘Scissor Sisters’ remains one of the 20 biggest-selling albums of the 21st century.

After realising they couldn’t possibly get gayer than Let’s Have A Kiki, the band went on hiatus in 2012. These days, you can find Ana hosting BBC Radio 2 show Dance Devotion every weekend, as well as BBC Eurovision coverage.

The pair’s other project, Hot Gay Time Machine, which they wrote with friend and collaborator Zak Ghazi-Torbati, tells the story of a gay man’s life through song and multiple costume changes. Like Six, Hot Gay Time Machine triumphed at the Edinburgh Fringe. It has won the Eddies Award, the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence, and the Brighton Fringe’s LGBTQ+ Award. 

We talked about what Lucy and Toby each bring to creating their hit shows, what makes their relationship so fruitful, and the relationship between gay men and the queens they worship.

I tried to get Lucy to tell me what they’re working on next but she was tight-lipped...

*** Who do you want to hear in Season Two? Tweet us @Dorothy_Podcast or leave a review here on Apple Podcasts! ***

In the last twelve years Bourgeois & Maurice have performed around the world, and at prestigious London venues including the Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre and Sadler’s Wells. In 2017 they won the HOME Manchester T1 Commission prize, which sees them creating a new main stage show for the theatre premiering 2020.

I wanted to talk to Liv about what feels like a classic, and really fruitful relationship - between a straight woman and a gay man. About making art together, and what they both bring to the party. And about whether Liv having a baby (not with George!) has changed things.

Catia trained at drama school and as a clown, before becoming a stand-up comedian. But it was when she found producing roles that Catia really hit her stride. She’s worked with Swank, one of Britain’s biggest street theatre companies, as well as producing and programming at some of the most iconic venues in London including Madame Jojo's. 

We talked about the parallels between being a Dorothy and an immigrant, and why Catia held her own hen do in a gay club. She also changed my perspective on female drag queens...

Mary was an academic as well as an activist, and her contribution to the rights held by British gay men today is massive. In 1968, she published an academic paper arguing that homosexuality is not a psychiatric or medical condition, based on a survey she conducted of gay men in Leicester and London. In her time on the Criminal Law Revision Committee, she advocated for the lowering of the age of consent for gay men. She also studied the letters of gay prisoners from the 16th century onwards, observing the 18th century gay subculture of ‘mollies’.

Mary and her partner Elizabeth Wilson contributed to founding and shaping the direction of the London Gay Liberation Front. Throughout her life McIntosh continued to forge links between the gay liberation movement, the women's movement and lesbian movements.

Since its inception in East London over a decade ago, Sink The Pink has outgrown venue after venue, becoming one of the biggest alternative club brands in the country and helping bring drag into the mainstream. The Sink The Pink team have gone on to develop the hugely popular queer pop music festival Mighty Hoopla, and club night Savage.

After moving from London to Margate, Amy founded Margate Pride and the queer youth group OUT Margate. She also had a baby!

We talked about Sink The Pink’s changing demographic and the power of going mainstream, the special relationship between women and gay men (and the term ‘fag hag’) and Amy’s experience juggling being a mum with working in nightlife.

She also starred in 18th Century brothel drama Harlots, and has just started work on the huge new Shondaland production Bridgerton, alongside Dame Julie Andrews. On stage, Nicola was lauded for her work in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar Warehouse.

Off stage, she’s a MASSIVE Dorothy. Nicola campaigned for marriage equality in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. She’s also a huge fan of drag, who’s been found tipping crisps over her head in tribute to Sasha Velour and glueing down her brows to complete an Alaska costume. 

We talked about her LGBTQ advocacy, living in San Francisco as a teenager, and her friendship with Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness. 

Nicki’s cover of fellow Eurovision entrant Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ was a top five hit in the UK and US in 1995, selling over five million copies worldwide. She has performed in gay clubs from the very start of her career and is currently signed to the HI-NRG label Energise Records, along with other Pride season favourites Hazell Dean, Sinitta, and Sonia.

Since 2007, she has also been working as an actor in pantomime and musicals, including The Wizard of Oz and Annie.

We talked about Nicki’s Eurovision experiences, making music for gay clubs, and playing musical theatre legend Ethel Merman.

She lives in Dublin, and works in marketing and communications (yep, everything I’ve just mentioned is side hustle.)

We talked about finding your tribe online, her work with ACT UP (actupdublin.com), and how she sees the role of an ally.

Professor Orkin led the ‘Going Viral’ blood-borne virus testing week campaign, and under her leadership BHIVA has been acknowledged as an early champion of the U=U campaign. Professor Orkin sees herself as a medical activist, working to improve the lives of people living with HIV in the UK by providing medical evidence that challenges stigma.

She trained as a doctor in her native South Africa at the height of the AIDS crisis before moving to London, where she met her partner - who also works in HIV medicine. 

Fanny is unusual among drag queens for a few reasons - as well as the blogging, she’s a cisgender woman, and she started doing drag with her husband. So she has some really interesting perspectives on the performance of gender, on how the queer scene has changed and continues to change - and whether the concept of a ‘Dorothy’ could even become obsolete.

Juno lives in Brighton, and is part of the city’s queer cabaret collective Club Silencio. In 2014 Juno became a School Role Model for the LGBT charity Stonewall. She also has a ridiculously cute chihuahua called Prince.

We talked about Juno’s experience of going to gay clubs after transitioning, what makes a nuanced female character, and how we might define the cultural sensibility of a Dorothy.

Amy co-founded and continues to run iconic Vauxhall clubnight and arts company Duckie, which champions innovative cabaret and runs community outreach with those on ‘the edge of the edge’. She’s also the co-founder of campaign group RVT Future, which aims to protect the future of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - Duckie’s home and the UK’s oldest queer venue.

In 2016, Amy was appointed Night Czar by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, tasked with helping London thrive around the clock. She’s responsible for the city’s nightlife - including safeguarding venues - working with night time industries, local authorities, the Police, Transport for London, and the public. 

Amy is also a BBC Radio 6 DJ, and author of the first ever LGBTQ history book for children - From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBTQ Movement. So, a busy woman.

We talked about how Amy came to settle in London and how society has changed since the 1990s. We shared our experiences of sexism in the queer club scene. And I asked Amy about the pieces of work that mark her out, in my mind, as a true Dorothy - the performance art pieces Gay Man In A Lesbian’s Body, and Cum Manifesto, which she performed at cruising ground Hampstead Heath in the midst of the AIDS crisis.