With GaydarRadio’s Breakfast show slapping on the mascara for a limited edition Drag Queen edition this Friday, 27 February, before chatting to the Queen of Drag, RuPaul, on the Sunday show, we thought it would be fitting to countdown some of the very best Queens. Yes, we roll out the red carpet, get on our knees and bow down to Drag Queen royalty. Find out more.

RuPaul
“You’d better work” was one of the catch-cries of the early 90s, making the ‘Queen of Manhattan’ an international household name. In a time of grunge rock and heroin chic, RuPaul Charles was the glittering apex of popular culture, having the distinction of being the first drag queen supermodel for MAC cosmetics. With a billboard and the larger-than-life declaration “I am the MAC girl”, there’s no denying that this girl can work.


Regina Fong
Who better to start with than Her Imperial Highness, Regina Fong – The Last of the Romanoffs. A creation of British entertainer Reg Bundy, no one will forget this flame-haired Russian princess who escaped the Russian Revolution with three Faberge Eggs to find herself ruling London with shows at The Black Cap in Camden Town, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and the West End. She reigned supreme.


Dame Edna Everage
We know we're in the presence of a comic genius whenever we hear the unmistakeable cry, "Hello Possums!" The former Mrs. Norm Everage proved she was anything but your average Aussie housewife from Wagga Wagga when her ‘manager’ and alter ego Barry Humphries created Dame Edna and took first Australia, then the world, by storm. This Grand Dame counts herself as one of The Queen’s inner circle of friends and will probably be there with her to celebrate her upcoming birthday.


Lily Savage
Make way for Paul O’Grady’s Birkenhead Bombshell, or Birkenhead slapper as she's sometimes known. Quoted as saying, “Life’s too short to clean an oven”, and, “Take it easy boys, there’s plenty for all”, she’s our type of woman! Finding mainstream success on television and in major theatres, O’Grady has hinted that the Scouse starlet may be making a comeback. We wait with baited breath.


Danny La Rue
Bob Hope called him “the most glamorous woman in the world” and who could argue with that? He has impersonated some of the most impressive and foreboding women in the world, from Elizabeth Taylor to Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marlene Dietrich to Margaret Thatcher. Among his many talents he has been a nightclub owner, West End performer and an international film and TV star – now this is one Queen with clout!



Divine
John Travolta has nothing on Harris Glenn Milstead. The original film incarnation of Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, Divine was the housewife who got himself a makeover to rival Deborah Harry, who was his co-star. No one could forget his gravelly drawl, "Could you turn that racket down? I'm trying to iron in here." Divine was weird, wonderful and an inspiration. Ursula the Sea-Witch from The Little Mermaid was modelled on him, thank you very much. What a formidable presence, what a fantastic, impressive Queen.


Dave Lynn
It all started when he borrowed a halter-neck top and black skirt from his mum because he wanted to be like Liza Minelli. Now there is no one like Dave Lynn on the scene. The Brighton babe is a TV, film and stage star, a cabaret performer and is known to all and sundry as ‘the drag queen of drag queens’ finding mainstream success in the aptly named TV program Faking It.  


Lady Bunny
The Lady Bunny, a.k.a. Jon Ingle, could give Queer Eye’s Carson a run for his money as Star Magazine’s resident fashion bitch to the worst-dressed stars of the week. The first Lady of the fashion police has also been up on the silver screen in To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar and Wigstock: The Movie. This Queen loves her wig and her falsies - her false eyelashes, that is. Move over Jessica Rabbit, this is one sexy bunny of Bombshell proportions.


Lady Chablis
Having literary beginnings in John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the pre-operative transsexual, full time transvestite and drag queen burst from the pages and into popular culture. You may ask, “Is she a drag queen?” The answer from the woman herself is, “If you bitches pay me to be one I am!” Well, this bitch has film credits alongside John Cusack and Kevin Spacey, making the fine Chablis a Queen of the highest calibre.


House of Diabolique
Derrick Michael has created a simulated doppelganger in the form of a ‘robot drag queen who does not exist’. His site is devoted to NYC house music, trance, electro, freestyle, disco, nu-electro, bitch tracks and runway. A postmodern cult figure, The House of Diabolique is a hyper reality of spectacle, image, and sound.

Want more? Then make sure you listen to GaydarRadio’s Breakfast show this Friday, 27 February, which is slapping on the mascara for a limited edition Drag Queen edition! Neil and Debbie will be donning wigs and camping it up with a host of special drag queen guests.

Then, on Sunday's show, they’ll be talking to RuPaul, the Queen of Drag, about her new single, album and reality TV show Rupaul's Drag Race! Plus, why not send us your own drag pics and we’ll include them on Neil and Debbie’s profile. Send your images to studio@gaydarradio.com.

Drag breakfast with Neil and Debbie from 7-11am on Friday 27 February and Sunday 1 March, only on GaydarRadio.com.

Get your fill of the best drag movies ever made with The Camp Classics Collection: Some Like it Hot, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, La Cage Aux Follies, Birdcage (4 Disc Boxset). Buy it online and save some money to put towards The Dame Edna Experience: The Complete Series.