The Funny Girls of Blackpool

all photographs by author

The winter air is frigid and salt-kissed in Blackpool. But stepping into the draughty bosom of the 1930s cinema is like a portal to another realm – one of sequins, hairspray, and layer after layer of stage makeup.

Despite all the inhospitable funk found in a listed building – the years of visible aging and poor insulation – I was excited. I was there to speak to and photograph some funny girls from Funny Girls, a cabaret bar in the heart of Blackpool celebrating its 30th anniversary. They’ve been called pioneers, forging under the queerphobia of Thatcher’s Section 28, and bringing their unique blend of Northern drag and cabaret to Blackpool’s long-running industry of gaud.

I wanted to explore what made Funny Girls special, and how it continues to thrive in my hometown. If I’m honest, I wondered what the hype was all about – people dressing up and lip syncing and that. But over several nights I watched the show and spoke to the performers and dancers. It might be dead of winter, but spring rehearsals have already begun. There’s nothing quite like it in the world. Disco music blasting like a house party, the old cinema alive and heaving with smoke machine vapour. Cheering and whistles bounce off the walls of the auditorium. By evening the place is bustling.

It is an old-school art-deco gaudy gate to heaven! It’s slapstick, it’s acrobatic, it’s light-hearted. Lights on tassels on bustles on tambourines. “I love it,” says Shirely, who started in musical theatre, “you get paid to prat around.”

As I sat down for my first show, I was scared from the threat of audience interaction. It brought me back to childhood experiences dancing in the Blackpool Tower Circus. Who was going to call on me? Was I the next punchline? But it became kitsch therapy: “HAVE A LAUGH!” Once the show gets started the audience soon realises we’re all at the butt of a joke at one point or another. Eventually you’ve got to give in. A party of Red Hatters or a recent divorcee? Come down to Funny Girls to be named and shamed!

The show is sensorial, periods of dance are spread out by moments of lights-on chatting and comedy bits. The friendly environment encourages small talk with your dancing neighbours. The dazzling India dances between the bar and the stage effortlessly. You can feel how much spirit she puts in. Noticeably, the crowd is full of visitors. So many tourists from abroad come to see our local dancers, and 30 years later people still come back for more. Hostess Zoe Thornton-Coates has been here from the start, getting pulled in by “pissing about, fun things, fancy dress parties, staff cabaret at the old Flamingo.” She speaks on how unexpected the success was. Her non-stop work contrasts what’s usually provided during the two or three year lifespan of “fun pubs”. She had no idea it would last this long. She had dreams of travelling the world but was surprised to find the prolonged success of the show and resultant work work work. As we talk, she gives an honorary mention to the bar’s famous leading lady Betty Legs Diamond, who is back working a few days a week. Her talent was the pull for Funny Girls all those years ago, I’m told.

Being a fly on the wall in dressing rooms and rehearsal spaces, watching the ladies apply their makeup and slip into their costumes, I have found a backstage ecosystem of hard graft and thirty-year-old traditions. It’s here – in the hours that the public do not see – where the performers’ skill and passionate planning are laid bare. You can’t help but like things that people really care about.

I’m at the age now where I hold onto control wherever I can. Young people thrive on freedom, and self-inflicted labels dictate what we should and shouldn’t experience. But here at Funny Girls it all goes out the window. Whether you’re queer and in your 20s or a 55-year-old straight dad of three, you’re subjugated to a four-hour full body musical dining dancing experience. And you’ll enjoy it. It becomes a transformation of sorts – “no” to phones, but “yes” to screaming… just what we need in our modern age.

Leading lady for three years running CeCe D’vyne – also known as Reece – can’t imagine a time where Funny Girls didn’t exist, and it has done almost as long as he’s been alive. “The best thing is when it started in 1994, drag wasn’t a thing.” Owner Basil originally faced doubters, Reece tells me. “They went round with posters to cafes and people were like: ‘Oh a transvestite show? Drag queens? That is never going to work.’ And 30 years later it is still here now.”

For him it’s not a drag gig: “We are all professional dancers. It’s a whole production.” He’s not wrong. As one might step into the building for an evening with Chorley’s own Kyran Thrax as Tin Man Queen of Oz, you could also enjoy the experience of queens serving you chicken breast with white sauce from Funny Girls’ own on-site restaurant.

What keeps this talented roster of performers at Funny Girls is the sense that this is their home, and it’s all bloody good fun. Reece learned skills in makeup as he went along after getting hired, developing his character over time and emphasising her with glitter, contour, and wigs. He moves lively and pulls exaggerated faces at the crowd to get a laugh as the “funny” one. “I’m just a guy who wants to go on stage and dance,” he explains. “Like a nurse going to work and putting their uniform on. This is my uniform.” 

The series of portraits captures the enigmatic drag queens and all they embody – dynamic and charitable characters perfectly representing our earnestly sincere and disregarded town. The creativity, celebration, movement, and costume on display contrasts Blackpool’s landscape of abandonment, our town delegated to poverty and strife. But perhaps there’s more to this town than misery! What we lack in money, we make up for in joy of our own making – whether it’s a good punchline or an even better cut crease.