Reigning Queen of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, beloved powerhouse performer Ginger Johnson, is to swap her crown for a crash helmet as she brings her all-new show Ginger Johnson Blows Off! to Soho Theatre for a 3-week season from Monday 23 September – Saturday 12 October. at 9.30pm, followed by her first solo UK tour.

What do you do when you achieve your dream of winning RuPaul’s Drag Race? Come up with a new dream of course! Bursting with stunning looks and cunning stunts, Ginger Johnson Blows Off! Following her sold-out Christmas show, Ginger All the Way!, at Soho Theatre, Britain’s ditsiest daredevil will now take a death-defying leap of faith, taking on her biggest challenge yet.

Not content with snatching the Drag Race UK crown, Ginger intends to use her year-long reign to break new ground in drag performance. Audiences can expect Ginger’s signature big hair, big heart and big laughs as our Queen swaps her stilettos for safety goggles and the runway for the real world.

Written, directed, and performed by Ginger Johnson, with additional material and original songs by cabaret legends Bourgeois and Maurice, Ginger Johnson Blows Off! showcases whoopee cushions, confetti and 80s power ballads.

YASS met Ginger and this is everything we talked about.

First of all, again, thank you for your time. I can imagine that you are very busy preparing your new show, but it’s a great honour to have you here. How are you doing? How are you feeling today?

I’m good. I just did a month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with my new show, and then I came back from the festival and I was absolutely exhausted. I’ve had a little bit of time off this week, but I’m getting back down to business and back out into the real world, so I’m excited about what’s coming up. There’s a lot about to happen in the next couple of months.

Please tell me more about “Ginger Johnson blows off”.

Let’s take everything from the beginning. I dreamt of being on Drag Race for a very long time. it was something that I’d always wanted to do, and then that dream came true, and I got to be on the show. And not only did I get to be on it, I actually won it! So, that was like, double thumbs up, but it left a space in my life to find a new dream to follow. I love to set myself ridiculous challenges. For this new challenge, I was inspired by that time I went to the circus when I was about 11 years old, and I saw this absolutely beautiful woman get inside a cannon and be fired through the air across the circus ring! I just thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I have been so inspired by her. Her name was Zaza. I’ve never forgotten it, the image of her flying through the air and landing in the big net, and everybody getting up and giving her a standing ovation. And even in that moment at 11 years old, I thought, “Wow, I want people to give me this kind of attention”. I want to try and bring some danger into my life!

So my new challenge is to become a daredevil and do dangerous stunts to impress people, and that’s what the new show is about. It’s about my adventure in finding out what it’s like to do dangerous things like that, and then performing live dangerous stunts on stage for the audience. But, it’s not just the stunts in the show. I’ve also done some original songs with the amazing cabaret Bourgeois and Maurice, and I sing those live. And there’s lots of laughs and comedy and silly things along the way. It’s a very silly show. It’s sort of pretending to be serious and tense, but actually, at the heart of it, I am a clown, and my drag is very much rooted in clown. I think drag queens are basically clowns with different face paint on.

I wanted to make a show that was an escape from the real world for the people that come to see it, because the real world’s a little bit scary at the moment. So, it’s not just about me doing stunts; it’s also about my journey of figuring out what it means to be brave and what it means to put yourself out there. In a way, it’s a little bit like my experience of going on Drag Race. You never know where you’re going to land, and it’s scary and exciting, and everybody’s watching.

You are the writer, the director, and you also perform in the show. How did you manage to do all these things at the same time? Where do you find the time, the energy, the creativity?

Well, I’ve been two different people for the last 15 years, since Ginger Johnson started up. I don’t know, I think I’ve been making theatre as long as I’ve been doing drag. That’s sort of where I feel my most at home. The style of show that I make is often about a challenge that I set to myself, and in this show it is mostly me telling the story of how I face that challenge. I have to admit I’m a bit of a control freak and a perfectionist, so sometimes I’d just rather do something myself, that is why I am the writer, the director and the performer. But, in this show, Bourgeois & Maurice has helped me with the songs and the additional material.

And what was the biggest challenge that you have faced so far?

Drag Race is the biggest challenge I’ve ever had. It felt so impossible before, during and after. It was really hard. The hardest thing about it is was being separated from all the things in my life that keep me happy and stable, like my partner and my cats and my house and my friends. And then the challenges themselves are tough, you only get one chance. But, I’ve managed to keep my anxiety to myself and not share it with the room, which made it seem like I wasn’t really struggling! However, a lot of the things we did on Drag Race, I’ve been doing in my drag a long time. I’ve done everything you can do in drag. I’ve done TV, film, theater, bars, I’ve done karaoke, I’ve done weddings, I’ve done funerals, I’ve done adverts, I’ve been in a musical, I’ve done a roast, I’ve done stand up, I’ve been in a pantomime, I’ve done a talk show, I’ve done everything. So, I think that really helped!

Your previous show was very successful and sold-out. Are the expectations and the pressure higher this time because of the previous success?

I think I try not to think about what the expectation is. I try to make shows that I would want to go and see. I think if you try and second guess your audience, it doesn’t feel genuine, because it feels like you’re trying to read their minds about what it is they want to see, and hopefully, what they want to see is me!

I feel the pressure on myself and it’s definitely pushed me to make this the most ambitious show that I’ve done in all of the ways. We’ve got huge amounts of set and production and we’ve really gone for it. So, the pressure is there, but I try not to think about it.

How has your life changed after, after Drag Race?

It is wild. I haven’t stopped. I just have not stopped. I was thinking about this the other day when I had a little bit of time off after I got back from Edinburgh. I’ve toured around the world. I had my show at Christmas, then I had my tour with the Angels of the North, then we went to Australia, then I went on the Winners tour. And in amongst all of that, I wrote this new show that I’m doing now! I’m also writing another show that I’m working on, and then, we’ve got the Angels of the North tour again at the beginning of next year. It has just been non-stop, which has been so exciting! I love performing, and I love meeting the fans of the show and spending time with them! I’m a huge fan of the show myself. Meet and greet is one of my favorite parts of the gigs, as you get to meet all the people who have been rooting for you, and share jokes with them, and give them a hug.

How similar or different is your drag persona to the real you?

So, when I first started doing drag, Ginger and I were very separate. But over the years, as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve sort of accepted myself more and more as a queer person, and I’ve evolved, I’ve had those experiences that you have that change you and make you truly get to a point of loving and accepting yourself. As a result, I have come closer and closer to Ginger. And now, the line between us is very thin.

In your last show, I remember that you were revealing a lot of things about your personal life and your family, which was really beautiful! Do you feel vulnerable when you are sharing personal stories?

I think you only feel vulnerable if you’re worried about what the response and the reaction of the audience will be. But if you’re talking to your friends, you don’t have to worry about the reaction, because they are friends. And this is how I think of my audience. Sometimes the stories that I tell on stage are sort of versions of what my real life is, because, to be honest, my real life is actually quite boring. I’m mainly just working a lot of time, so some of it it’s maybe exaggerated or it’s taken a slightly different angle to what real my real life actually is, but it almost always has an element of truth to it.

How has the queer, the queer scene and then the drag scene, evolved over the last years?

It gets bigger and bigger, which is really exciting. Give us more drag. When I first started, it wasn’t cool to do drag. And I started to do drag because I wanted to fuck shit up. I wanted to go to nightclubs and be an absolute nuisance. I wanted to go into bars and do shows that people would be like “What is that”?! I used to do really weird, alternative drag. What I love is that we get more and more versions of what drag is. We get more and more people bringing their own individual flavour to the art form of drag. And that’s amazing, because it’s an art form that you can take in any direction at all. You can explore it in lots of different ways.

Who are the drag people who have inspired you?

There are some performers now that I just love seeing. Dairy King is one of them, and is actually an amazing drag queen that is making these weird but incredibly funny and very intelligent drag shows that are like nothing I’ve ever seen! One of the first people that inspired me to do drag is an artist called David Hoyle, who is an amazing political anarchist live art performer who has been going a long time, much longer than I have, and is still a constant inspiration to me. When I saw David live for the first time, I thought “Wow, if this is what drag can be, then I want to do drag”. So that was a real turning point for me.

Also, Don One is an amazing drag king who I really, really enjoy. Great voice, really funny, really nice person. Additionally, I saw a great show in Edinburgh, by Polyamorous and Esther Parade, who are two queens from Cardiff. They had a really fab show, really funny, really silly, really clever storytelling. That was a great show.

What are your future plans? What does the future hold for Ginger?

I’m pretty busy all the way up towards the end of the year with touring “Ginger Johnson blows off”. I might have a little holiday during Christmas and then, next year, in April, I will be back on tour with Michael Maruli and Tamara Thomas, the Angels of the North. At the same time, I’m working in the background on another theater show. Stay tuned!

Ginger Johnson Blows Off! will also tour the UK to Bath, Newcastle, Birmingham, Norwich, Leicester, Cambridge, Cardiff, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool, Brighton, Manchester.

Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre is London’s most vibrant producer for new theatre, comedy and cabaret. Our central London venue is established as one of UK’s busiest with a buzzing bar, lively audiences and diverse year-round festival programme with a queer, punk, counter-culture flavour. In 2025 our second venue Soho Theatre Walthamstow opens. Work extends beyond our venues with a full touring programme and strong international connections with New York, Melbourne and Mumbai. Edinburgh Fringe is a huge part of our year, we present many shows and scout hundreds more and we are UK’s leading presenter of Indian comedians. Our filmed comedy specials can be seen on international airlines and Soho Theatre Player. And our artist development and participation programmes are as important as the work on our stages. Soho Theatre is a charity and social enterprise.

https://sohotheatre.com/events/ginger-johnson-blows-off-uk-tour/

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