The Flying Handbag
A big, purpose-built LGBTQ+ bar and club on Queen Street, open from noon every day with drag hosts, karaoke, food and a sun terrace.
Drag kings in Blackpool
From Vesta Tilley to the UK's first drag king bar in 2015, and where to watch for kings now.
A drag king performs an exaggerated masculine character: the swaggering lad, the crooner, the boy-band heartthrob, the gentleman. Kings are usually women, trans men or non-binary people, but, like all drag, it's a performance, not an identity.
Blackpool's first great king: Vesta Tilley
Long before anyone said "drag king", Blackpool's stages belonged to the male impersonators, and the greatest was Vesta Tilley (1864 to 1952). She played swells, soldiers and sailors with perfectly cut suits and a knowing wink, and by the 1890s she was Britain's highest-earning woman. A 1909 programme for Blackpool's Palace Theatre billed her as "The World's Favourite Artiste", and her audiences were full of young women from the mill towns, delighted to watch masculinity sent up. Read Vesta Tilley and the male impersonators.
Kings: the UK's first drag king bar, 2015
In 2015 a bar called Kings opened on High Street, between Blackpool North station and Dickson Road. It was billed as the UK's first venue dedicated to drag kings, by women, for women, including trans women, with everyone welcome. Its compère performed as Rogue, an internationally known drag king and DJ. Kings ran karaoke for male impersonators, handed out free moustaches, hosted visiting kings and ran workshops. It no longer trades.
Where to see kings now
We haven't found a regular drag king night in Blackpool in 2025-26; the resident line-ups are queens. The best chances are:
- Blackpool Pride in June. See Blackpool Pride.
- The Rainbow Weekend in February.
- Visiting cabaret at the mixed venues.
Funny Girls
Blackpool's best-known drag cabaret, staging big themed revues in a restored 1939 art deco cinema two minutes from Blackpool North.
If you're a king who performs in Blackpool, or you book them, please tell us.
Want to try it?
Drag king workshops pop up at Prides and LGBTQ+ centres around the North West. Lancashire LGBT's women and non-binary group and the Rainbow Creative Hub on the Fylde are good places to find others interested.
Rainbow Creative Hub
A new arts club for LGBT+ people on the Fylde coast, held at a creative studio in St Annes.
Lancashire LGBT Women and Non-Binary Group
A free monthly online group from the county LGBTQ+ charity for lesbian, bi, trans and queer women and femme non-binary people.
More
Sources
Drag and performance: more pages
Drag performersQueens, kings, dames, trans showgirls, faux queens and alternative drag, and where to see them.Drag queensThe Funny Girls company, Garlands residents, Drag Race stars, the legends and where to see them.Panto damesThe 2026 Grand Theatre panto, forty years of Grand dames, Danny La Rue and how dames relate to drag.Trans drag queens and showgirlsTrans women in drag and cabaret: the showgirl tradition, what it means and Blackpool's welcoming stages.Bio queens and faux queensWomen who perform as drag queens: the names, why many dislike "faux", Drag Race UK's first and more.Alternative drag and drag monstersHorror, art and gender-defying drag: what it is, Mr Blackpool, Halloween shows and where to look.Every identityThe full list, the long acronyms and UK law.