NORTHERN Ireland’s premier drag king has launched a new development course in a bid to make the artform more accessible.
Gemma Hutton (40) – also known by her stage persona Dick Von Dyke – first started experimenting with drag 14 years ago.
Originally pursuing a career as a comedian, Gemma struggled to find her own voice within the circuit, which led her to take a step back from performing.
However, after being noticed by the creative director of Belfast’s Cabaret Club, Ross Anderson-Doherty, she was asked to host events at the club where she finally found her niche.
“When covid hit we needed to downsize as we could only have four performers so everyone kind of doubled up jobs and I’d tried drag before, so I decided to just add it into my hosting and Dick (Von Dyke) just stuck,” she describes.
“I’m incredibly grateful to cabaret for giving me the space to develop that character.”
Ironically named after the Hollywood actor who starred in her favourite childhood film – Mary Poppins, Gemma explains how she drew inspiration for the character from John Candy and Jack Black in order create a friendly and approachable persona.
“When I started performing as Dick everyone was delighted, because they had this masculine energy, but also the safety of it being a woman behind it all.
“And it’s just progressed from there and over the last year in particular I’ve found my brand, gotten to work with loads of amazing people and I’ve been getting noticed by more renowned kings so it’s been great – Dick is very much his own monster now,” she laughs.
However, despite being the ‘Drag Daddy of the north, Gemma admits the experience was initially “very daunting”.
“The drag scene only really became popular when Ru Paul’s Drag Race said it was OK to like it,” she explains.
“It became a more accessible artform for straight people and now our audiences are so much more diverse.
“But when I was coming up I had to cut my teeth on a professional stage – there weren’t really any open drag night events so I had to come in cold and that was very daunting.
“That also meant that there was a lot of trial and error involved – if you go back far enough on my Instagram, you’ll see a lot of busted looking drag faces from the early days, but that’s how everyone learns, through practice and mistakes.”
Although the north’s drag queen scene has been seemingly ‘normalised’ in recent years – particularly after the success of Belfast’s Blu Hydrangea on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World in 2022 - Gemma believes drag kings “are still very much in the shadows”.
“There’s still an awful lot of misogyny out there and there’s so many people who still don’t even know that drag kings are a thing or that it’s valid.
“And that does have a lot to do with the Ru Paul culture and commercial culture that has come about.
“It’s wonderful that drag queens get such a platform now but there’s no elevation for kings.”
She adds: “I think a lot of people presume being a king is just putting a bit of eyeliner around your chin and obviously it can be but that’s not what I do.
“A quick face for me would be an hour and a half because of contouring and shading – you’re essentially flipping your face – there’s a lot of work goes into it.
“Then when it comes to the performance people think it’s only a couple of minutes on stage but there’s so much time, effort and money involved – the average costume for me can range between £500-£700.
“And you could spend 16 hours working on a costume or a routine for a 3-minute number. It can be very intricate.”
It is for this reason that Gemma decided to launch her own drag king development course.
Aimed at beginners the course will teach them the importance of backstage etiquette, how to invoice properly and how to create a drag persona.
“It focuses on things that people aren’t taught,” she explains.
“I’m a big community person and I always want to make drag and performance as accessible as possible and get a good range of people on the course.
“The hope is that by the end of it everyone will have a firm idea of what they want to put out there and why and what that looks like.
“I also have a photographer coming to take photos of everybody suited and booted, so they have some shots of themselves that they can maybe send to people who do bookings.
“It’s kind of an A-Z of how to get yourself started.”
Alongside the drag development course Gemma will also be running a programme which focuses on hosting.
“Like drag there’s so many elements to hosting – you have to remember that you’re the sticking plaster – you’re not the main event.
“I’m essentially just training everybody to take my jobs,” she jokes.
However, Gemma is very much a jack of all trades as in addition to being a host, standup comedian, presenter and drag king she is also a writer.
Commissioned as part of last year’s Outburst Festival Gemma’s debut one woman show mOTHER explored themes of kinship, care and convention and the systems we have to navigate to find our tribes.
“It was very cathartic and it felt like a necessary piece of art as a queer mum who never really feels connected to any one group.
“It’s about talking about all the different things we experience as working class and how we’re all pitted against each other, like how working-class straight people are terrified of queer people and vice versa.
“But actually we’re all very similar in what we have try and get through in life and how, if we all connected, it would be a very different world.
“It was just a lovely thing to be able to do and I got a lot of messages from people who really loved and identified with the show which is amazing.”
In addition to writing about human connection, Gemma also celebrates it in her role as a professional celebrant.
“Being a celebrant came about because I needed a grown-up job as well,” she laughs.
“Last year I was in an operations manager job for a retail company, but I had no life and I was just permanently stressed so I just went ‘enough’.
“Now my bills are still paid but I’m happy and I have time and space to spend with my partner and my little girl – I only do jobs now that bring me joy.
“And being a celebrant is an absolute joy of a job, the buzz I get out of it is probably sometimes more than I’d get out of a standing ovation – it’s such an honour to do it.”
Reflecting on her own experiences over the course of her multifaceted career, Gemma says the best thing anyone who wants to do something creative can do is some research.
“None of these skills I have and that I need for my jobs are things your taught during your GCSEs,” she explains.
“You’ve probably got to do a bit of therapy and find out who you want to put out to the world and then find a job which enables you to do that.
“You’ve got to find your joy and then look at ways to make that money.”