Exclusive interview with Marmalade

This interview is available to listen to on Spotify, click below to take a listen or keep scrolling to read.

Marmalade, hello my dear, welcome to Spill the Tea! How are you doing?
I'm doing well, thank you for having me.

This interview has been a long time coming but I’m so pleased to be sitting down with you. Last year you competed in ‘The Crown’ and you came out triumphant as the winner but before I get to that I want to start by learning about how you discovered that you wanted to do drag?
Well it's a funny one, so my friend Brenna, years and years ago now, she was wanted to drag, she was really into the drag scene and all that and I got into it just through her but on the side-lines. Then one day she said oh this is so great I can't wait for when we start drag, we're going to be performing and stuff and I was like, oh okay, it never crossed my mind to do drag, to want to do it, but because my friend said it I sort of went with it. Then we both fell into it and went in different ways but then we sort of came we're back together at this point now. I'm very grateful for her forcing me into it because I would never have thought about starting it because there was always something about the confidence on stage that I could never see myself doing, so I don't think I ever thought of it being something for me and the idea of being on stage in drag literally terrified me until probably a few years ago. Even when I started it terrified and over these past years particularly I've been unpicking why that is… so yeah, it's all down to my friend Brenna, you can blame her.

“Drag happens in the dressing room not on the stage, it’s the hunching over putting on a wig or gluing down on eyelash and then going out there and being the most heightened amazing thing but then coming back so that camaraderie that you get in the dressing room that's really what I love so working with more people”

How did you decide on your drag name?
God, it's a story of my dyslexia and my stupidity quite frankly, when I was in school I was really obsessed with marmite the food, I don't know why I was just really obsessed with it and I said that was going to be my drag name and I kept saying it. I got in drag one day and I was with Brenna and I was like oh yes, here I am Marmalade and she was like… you mean marmite and I was like oh yeah. I sort of thought Marmalade sounds better, it's sort of one word which I like it's very French burlesque, which is a lot of my references and a lot of what inspires me. It just sort of accidentally fit perfectly which was really great.  

I hate marmite so I prefer it.
There we go. 

I love looking at the looks that you share on your socials, how involved do you like to be in the process (because I've seen you do sketches before and stuff like that).
For myself, when I'm creating look for myself, I like to be very involved in the design, I usually start out with a reference point, my aesthetic is very vintage and therefore it's very referential of that but I enjoy sketching it out because there's something about fashion illustrations and the way the form is made and the way the colour drifts across the page and all of that which I love, so I often prefer sketching it more than making it because making it is a f*cking nightmare but then sometimes depending if I’m making it for someone else, a lot of the time if they have a vision they want, I'm just happy to just go with that but if I can be involved I will because it is fun making it. 

Do enjoy the process as well when doing commissions for other people, do you still enjoy that?
No, it's uh… that's not quite true but it's stressful, it always turns out fine but I'm just my worst critic, so I stress myself out, being able to now work for myself full-time doing is amazing, I'm very lucky to be able to do that and not only do it but make outfits for the people and platform that I get to make them. I do love it, as much as I like to complain when a needle breaks at two o'clock in the morning. 

A love hate relationship with it, you love the end, it’s just the stress during but then at the end you're like let's do another one, this is great!
Completely, the second it's done I'm like what's next? What's next? Which one am I going be creating next.

As we said at the beginning, last year you competed in the TuckShops The Crown, what made you want to apply?
I'm based in Cardiff and the drag scene is incredible but I never saw my style of drag in the scene in terms of performance. It's a lot of live singing, cabaret and it's incredible! I love to watch it but I never saw myself wanting to get up on stage and do it and particularly in London and also Manchester and cities like this the scene was far more, me. It got to a point where I had a bit of free time and I had a bit of free money so I thought I'm just going to apply to every drag competition that's this month in London, I applied to The Crown, Hay Babes and Not Another Drag Competition and put the feelers out there to try and make some connections in London in a way that I wasn't able to make here. Luckily I did, because of The Crown and Hay Babes and all these competitions I'm able to work fairly regularly in London which is great because I love being there. 

You went on to win The Crowns… Crown! How did it feel to do so well in the competition?
It was just such a relief to know that I am good at what I like to think that I'm good at. It's worth it, worth people's time, money and energy. I didn't quite anticipate how expensive it would be traveling back and forth to London every week for seven weeks and literally a friend was able to put me up for a lot of that but I was paying hotels, paying for buses making new outfits, all of it. It was very expensive so as incredible as it was to win and get the title and that validation, it was just great to get the prize money! 

What was your favourite thing about competing? 
This is gonna sound so cringy I know… but it really was the people that I met. I was saying about not having much of a scene in Cardiff that suits me and then seeing everything in London, it was just so lovely to be involved in this sort of scene with these people, doing amazing creative things, I made really good friends, particularly with That Girl, who I know you interviewed the other day, Miss Terri Box, Dr Cox, Karla Beauty Marx (so many people, literally everyone). It was fun to do the competition and then go for a coffee afterwards and talk about it and for it not to be a competition at all, just to be friends, I would be sat there and Terri would be giving me ideas on my number for next week and what I could wear and what I could make and they completely did not have to do that but it was so lovely that we had that relationship and now all of them I still am genuinely friends with to this day. We still message, we still talk so honestly I think that's what really made it most worthwhile overall. 

I love that, it's nice to come out of something like that and have that connection, of course those people are only gonna know and understand what you all went through. Season three has kicked off of The Crown, what would your advice be to the next drag acts taking on the competition?
Oh gosh, what would my advice be… I think for me in terms of what I enjoy, I want to see something that a I've never seen before or something that makes me go f*ck you, I wish I thought about that because looking great is amazing, having a really great mix, a really great outfit number, great dance skills, it's all wonderful and can get you very far but especially with these competitions I feel like there's such a safe space to try things, experiment new things, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's the point of it being a competition, having a judging panel giving feedback that can help you improve on the little things. But for me if you have a unique point of view or you're trying something new if I can see why you're doing drag because you're filling in a gap in the market that isn't there, that's always more exciting for me than someone who is just head to toe perfect.

Who do you think from the people who are competing has what it takes to take the crown?
I've spoken a lot to Casta Hex and they're incredible, they're so put together, I wasn't able to watch it but for royalty week they did this Princess Diana number, which for me is the point I would have gone to, something interesting and not the top of the list and then the second person I'm really excited by is Ariana Cherry, I've performed with them before at Hay Babes and they were really incredible then again from the little snippets I’ve seen from them and their performances, they look to be doing some really exciting stuff. I believe I'm back to judge the final so I'm very excited to see who makes it there and to see the progress because I'm watching all the stories, I'm seeing everyone's performances. It's gonna be really exciting to track the progress and see who makes it to the end. 

Now back to you what do you hope to achieve by the end of this year?
I think just to perform in London, Birmingham and Manchester more, just places I haven't been before, stages I haven’t performed on with people and line-ups I haven't performed with before, every time I do a line-up and there's someone who I know but I’ve never met I always have a really incredible experience with them! I would love to work with more people, I mean honestly that's the fun of it for me, it's not getting on stage, it's sitting in the dressing room with Yshee Black because she is putting on her makeup five minutes before and running out, performing and then getting back, that's the fun of it for me. Drag happens in the dressing room not on the stage, it’s the hunching over putting on a wig or gluing down on eyelash and then going out there and being the most heightened amazing thing but then coming back so that camaraderie that you get in the dressing room that's really what I love so working with more people. 

I'd like to play a little game with you if that's okay that we call it Piping Hot Tea and it's basically quick fire questions that just need quick fire answers back. 
Sure let's do it.

What is the best thing about doing drag? 
Attention
The worst?
Shoes 
How long does it take you to come up with concepts for your looks?
Oh ages, right up until the very last moment that I go on stage. 
What's the first thing that you do after getting out of drag? 
Lay on my bed naked.
Favourite song to perform to? 
Bonnie Tyler.
Describe your drag in three words.
Sultry, stupid and expensive.
Did the correct person win the crown season two?
I f*cking hope so!
What do you hope your drag tombstone would say? 
Not just another skinny twinkle in a corset. 
What's your guilty pleasure? 
Little Mix
Ohh nice I love Little Mix and finally did you love this interview?
Oh I really did.
Good, before I let you go I like to round the interviews off by giving you a spot to give a shout out to another drag performer, they can be a king, a queen or anything in-between or it can be a queer performer doing their thing. 
I recently performed at a gig with a performer called Cat Phisher, the first time I'd ever seen them was a show where I booked on the line-up and they were doing the competition at the start and I was doing burlesque and they were doing Burlesque and I'll just say… I did not want to go on stage after they were done because it was far better than mine. 

I also performed recently with Len Blanco who I've never performed with before and this was been one of those examples of meeting someone and them being so lovely in person, I found out they were Welsh, which I didn't know and then they went on to perform and they decided to do their Welsh song just for me, it was very cute and I would be remiss if I didn't also give a shout out to my Drag Mother Victoria Scone because I'd be nowhere without her. 

You can follow Marmalade on Instagram here.

Note: Some of this interview has been edited from the original transcript to help with readability.