Crawley promises “a life-affirming, sequin-clad pop party"

So says Josh Hanson who steps onto the stage as Candy Caned when Queenz – The Show With Balls! plays The Hawth, Crawley on Thursday, February 16; Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre on Saturday, March 25; and Southampton MAST on Sunday, March 26.

With the moves of Britney and voices like Whitney, the show brings together “dragtastic divas” serving up a set list of remixed and reimagined pop anthems including Queen Of The Night, Born This Way, Raining Men, I Will Survive, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Musical Mashups and many more in a “a life-affirming, sequin-clad pop party.”

“I have been with Queens for coming up for two years, from the very beginning and I've seen the show grow and grow and grow,” Josh says. “It has changed massively from the characters and the performers and to the songs themselves as we have got to really know who our audiences are and what they want. It is all about giving them exactly what they want and the response has been absolutely amazing. We get such wonderful audiences. They are so diverse. There was a woman who was saying that her husband really wasn't keen to come but by the second song he was up and dancing, and I think that's the case with all the men once they realise it is just going to be a right laugh and they will also have a fantastic time. It really is a show for everybody, the young and the old, whether you are new to drag or whether you have loved it for years.

“But it is also a safe space. With the Queenz we are so diverse and we're so individual that anybody can relate to all of us or one of us or just a couple of us or whatever.

"We've really created a safe space especially for young people to come along with their parents. It's a love note for people to come along with their mum and dad or their carers or whoever and just say that this is who I am. We've had a few people saying that they have been able to come out to their parents or that they just wanted their parents to experience a show like this. We've had some amazing responses whether you're gay or straight, black or white. It really doesn't matter.

"The show is just about loving people for who they are. It is about accepting everybody and just really appreciating the people around us and ourselves.”

“The show has really helped me. I did struggle for a long time with who I was. I did come out at an early age, at 16, but once I came out it was still a lot of struggle growing up in a world that was not necessarily very welcoming towards people like me.

" From school, from an early age I moved from Dubai to the UK and going into secondary school at the age of 14 was very, very hard. There was a lot of bullying but I've learned to be how I want to be, to talk how I want to talk and to walk how I want to walk and just to really appreciate myself and the fact that I carry myself differently. I know myself so well now. I'm not worried at all what people think

“Drag is about all sorts of things. It's art. It is performance-based art where you can show so many different sides to yourself from the make-up to the fashion, from the comedy to the hair, from the dancing to the singing. It is space to be whoever you want.”

But yes there is certainly an element of Josh in Candy Caned: “Candy Caned is Josh times 100!

" The whole idea comes from candy which is sweet and caned which suggests whips and chains! There are those two sides!”