Drag Race UK's first female queen Victoria Scone: 'I didn't know if drag was a possibility for me'

"God, I think the first time I was ever involved with drag was going to pantomimes from a very young age.

"I should've probably been saying, 'Oh, I want to be like Cinderella' or 'I want to be like Jasmine,' but instead I was like, 'I want to be the drag queen!'

"Drag's always been a part of my life. I genuinely think I was born to be a drag queen.

"But I didn't really know if, as a woman, that was a possibility for me."

Victoria Scone - whose real name is Emily - tells BBC Three she's loved drag for years.

And now, as a female drag artist, she's making history by appearing on the third series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK.

Drag was traditionally associated by some with men dressing as women but in recent years it's seen a more diverse array of performers, including female, trans and non-binary artists.

On RuPaul's Drag Race UK, performers like Victoria compete in singing, dancing and comedy challenges for the chance to be crowned the UK's next Drag Race Superstar.

'I was told, "This isn't the competition for you"'

"I'm feeling excited," Victoria, who lives in Cardiff, says about the new series airing in September. "I can't wait."

In choosing her name, Victoria says she wanted "something very British" and "something edible, being a curvaceous woman as I am." It's also a pun, as in "Where's Victoria? Victoria's gone!"

The drag artist says she takes inspiration from traditional styles of British drag and drag performers such as Danny La Rue, Ceri Dupree, Miss Jason and Son Of A Tutu.

"Very much old-school drag. I just love it. I love the fact that you can get up there, you can hold an audience for an hour or two hours or more.

"And it's your bloody night. You are the star of that show."

She also describes her drag style as "very, very camp" and she says she always aims to make her audiences laugh and feel comfortable.

"I don't make people feel hostile when they walk into a venue. It's like we're one big happy family in one big happy queer space."

But being a woman in drag hasn't always been easy.

When she entered her first drag competition, she says: "I was told, 'This isn't the competition for you.' But I didn't give up."

Her first performance was at The Two Brewers, an LGBT venue in South London: "And then a few days later I applied to another venue and then another venue and then another venue.

"I was completely hooked. So no matter what was thrown at me, I was going to be a drag queen."

She also says it's harder for female queens and drag kings to get booked at drag venues.

"My existence is technically political every time I step on stage, you know, as a woman in drag."

She hopes, though, that her appearance on RuPaul's Drag Race UK can help boost diversity in the drag world.

"Now that the top tier of drag is doing it, there's no more excuse for event organisers not to be booking more diverse lineups.

"Lineups can be so much more enriched and varied."

Victoria, 27, points out that she's "very much not the first female drag queen in existence" and she hopes she won't be the last to appear on the show.

"Hopefully there'll be a million more AFAB drag queens, drag kings, non-binary performers and so on."

(While Victoria does occasionally use the term AFAB - used in the drag community to refer to performers who were assigned female at birth - and says she "understands it's important in conversations to be inclusive," she says she prefers to simply be called a drag queen.)

'Drag is for everyone'

"It was a very weird, serene moment for me," Victoria says about walking into the famous Drag Race Werk Room for the first time. "It was like, 'I'm exactly where I need to be in this moment.'

"I wasn't apprehensive but I had those first-day-of-school bubbles and butterflies."

Victoria, who is a professionally-trained actor, singer and dancer, says she was particularly excited to show off her creativity with her outfit designs and props.

"Sometimes people may think I have an advantage because I have a woman's physique, but I think that's not the case at all," she adds.

"I'm not a particularly slender lady so I have to corset to within an inch of my life and I use padding.

"Some male-born drag queens can just throw on a little skimpy dress and go out there. I can absolutely not do that.

"I would look like a wrapped ham in the Morrisons meat aisle if I did," she says, laughing.

"I have to work just as hard, if not harder, most of the time."

Victoria - who was a sales and events coordinator before doing drag full time - looks back at the beginnings of her career and reflects that she made her drag "palatable" and "bookable" to fit into the traditional drag scene.

But in the future she says she hopes to embrace more of her "theatrical" and "political" sides and to be able to "speak more about the issues I face as a queer women in this industry".

And, along those same lines, she is keen to make sure that fans and viewers know that "drag is for everyone".

"To gate-keep who performs drag seems so backwards to me," she says.

"As queer people, we are oppressed and marginalised, so why would we continue to do that within our own community?

"People often don't even consider the fact that I - as a woman in drag - could be a queer woman.

"There are just not enough queer women in the public eye, in my opinion, so I'm here to be 'celesbian' - a celebrity lesbian!" she finishes, chuckling once again.

Series three of RuPaul's Drag Race UK airs on BBC iPlayer in September.