Gingzilla: 'I'm a monster, whether you like it or not'

• Kirstyn Smith
• 30 July 2018

Gingzilla / credit: Scott Chalmers

The statuesque drag queen brings the glamourous and grotesque origin story of Gingzilla to Fringe 2018

From behind, Gingzilla looks like your run-of-the-mill drag queen, albeit on the taller side at 7ft – but twirl her around and a glorious ginger beard immediately unmasks her aesthetic. After starting her drag career with self-confessed clown-ish makeup, her look has become much more polished, which is why clinching the deal with a beard strikes such a chord with both audiences and passers-by.

'When I started becoming more feminine and pretty, people had to stop and go: "Okay, how do I feel about what I'm seeing now? You are equally beautiful as you are masculine,"' she explains. 'I very much wanted to be a man, but with both sides – really teetering on that feminine/masculine edge.'

Gingzilla's Fringe show, Gingzilla: Glamonster vs the World, explores the idea of embodying all sides of this gender-fucking coin, through heroes of 50s and 60s B-movies (both Attack of the 50ft Woman and Godzilla being particularly on the nose) as well as self-actualisation and becoming one's true self through overthrowing subjection.

'The show is an origin story of Gingzilla,' she says. 'It's set around a character who's oppressed by the world and the patriarchy and she's trying to conform. In the second half of the show, she throws it all off and goes: "I'm not the pretty thing you want me to be. I'm a monster, whether you like it or not."'