‘There’s a lot of reverence for drag queens and trannies there you really are the queen of the night. Then the Radio Egypt parties at the George led to Tranny Talent and it just took off.’ Before that I was running around Shoreditch doing drugs when what I really wanted to do was performance. ‘I wasn’t consciously unleashing my children on the world! It was just a job. So how does it feel to be midwife of the alternative drag movement? He’s not quite the creature of the night you might expect, though as we’ll discover there’s a very good reason for that. The silver glitter belt and chipped purple nail varnish are the only real giveaways. Off stage, he’s quieter and – today at least – more conventionally dressed. On stage he’s a madcap performer, whether hosting his riotous Gay Bingo, compering at Tranny Talent or dragging up in the ‘Dallas’ parody ‘Stark Dallas Naked’ or his equally eccentric ‘Night of a Thousand Jay Astons’. His looks included baby doll dresses, Mickey Mouse gloves, tar and feathers, and wigs in every shade including green. From there it was a short hop to Bistrotheque, where his Tranny Lip Synching talent contest caused an even greater stir. Sunday night’s Radio Egypt parties were an instant hit. I’d never even heard of Bloolips, but I started hanging out on the downtown scene, going to places like Jackie 60, wearing skirts made out of hair’.Īfter three years in New York, Woo returned to London in 2003 and found a job DJing at the George and Dragon on Hackney Road. ‘I was in the Boiler Room one night and in flew this giant moth covered in tinsel. But under the watchful eye of Bloolips stalwart Lavinia Co-op, he did take his first tentative steps as a drag queen. ‘I thought I’d run away to New York and become a dancer.’ ‘I thought I’d be like Madonna,’ he says with a laugh. And when he got bored with that he tried telesales.

When the doors of the dance world refused to open, he took a job in retail, ‘folding jumpers at Racing Green on Regent Street’.

He studied in Birmingham before moving to London for further training. The irony of this is that Woo didn’t want to be a drag queen.

Jonny woo from the last dragon movie