Birmingham Drag & Burlesque Festival

Birmingham's first drag and burlesque festival lands with a full weekend of feathers, filth and proper showmanship. Three nights from House of Allure, the cabaret collective Dominus Von Vexo has run since 2017.

Friday kicks off with The Allure Games at the Old Joint Stock: part variety night, part bloodsport, performers scrapping for the crown under an expert panel. Saturday is the headliner. The Follies Grandé takes the Old Rep on Station Street, Birmingham's oldest working theatre, a hundred-year-old stage that more than earns the rhinestones. Sunday splits in two at Eden Bar: the sci-fi spectacle Worlds Away 2.0, then Backdoor 54, a Studio 54 afterparty that keeps going long after the curtain.

Drag, burlesque and cabaret, local names alongside touring stars. A first outing carrying itself like it's been running for years.