Meet John Sizzle ​​— the drag pioneer breathing new life into London’s Queer night scene

Having emerged in the club scene in the late 80s, John Sizzle isn’t “supposed to be dressing like a toddler and going to discos’”. But, while his drag days might be (mostly) behind him, the party pioneer is as entrenched in the Queer night scene as ever. A decade after the iconic LGBTQIA+ venue, The Glory, opened its doors, Sizzle and his business partner, Jonny Woo, are bringing some new spice to Queer London nightlife with the boozer’s naughty little sister, The Divine. It has a lot to live up to — its predecessor was an integral part of the community and had a pretty infamous reputation (think juicy jacuzzi parties, fabulous festivals and supermodel soirées). Yet, if there’s anything the north-Londoner knows how to do, it’s throw a party. After all, Sizzle ditched a cushty career in advertising for DJing and drag in its rock’n’roll heyday, an anarchistic era of the artform when shaving and tucking were bypassed by silliness and sex toys. And, while the drag scene might be more ‘werk’ than whacky these days, Sizzle’s determination to nurture his community is unwavering. The Divine promises to bring a new cultural arm to Queer nightlife, as well as a downright banging club space. As one of the key players in Queer partying, it’s undeniable that Sizzle, who’s wearing the UGG Goldencoast Multistrap Sandal the day of our shoot, proudly ages “disgracefully”, there’s a lot more fun to come…

Nessa Humayun: Could you tell me a bit about your childhood?  

JS: Well, my family’s Irish — they come from near Dublin in Kilkenny — and they came to London in the 60s, with loads of their other family. So we all grew up in a kind of Irish-flavoured north London area, Highgate, which sounds quite posh, but it was more the Archway bit. So really it was a working class upbringing. There were loads and loads and loads and loads of cousins all around us. And I went to a Catholic school in Highgate, and then I went to a boys school, St Aloysius. 

I always knew I was different from like the age of five. So the moment I started going to school, that’s when I kind of knew that something was up. I was pretty closeted, but I’ve always loved music and I was obsessed with things like Top of the Pops and record shopping, and it was the new romantic electronic era of the early 80s, so I started being obsessed with people like the Human League and Soft Cell, and all of these what we call gender fluid people now. Back then, we’d call it things like ‘gender bender’ and ‘Boy Georges’. And there were all of these nightclub faces as well that became pop stars. So you’d have people like Steve Strange and characters like that who would also cross over into pop. And so I got really obsessed with the idea of clubbing and all the rest of it. And I think, having eventually come out as a gay man, that was a route into discovering my sexuality and family and community.

I’ve gone full circle because I now run a club and hang out with people that make the music and the videos and the costumes. And also Princess Julia, who was one of the queens from that scene, is one of my friends and one of the main components of The Divine and The Glory before it.  

NH: So, growing up, did you have much Queer representation?

JS: No, zero. Absolutely zero. I went to a boys school — it was awful. I’m Catholic as well, so it was a total closet case. I was in secondary school from ‘79 to ‘84 and I was not happy, it was not a fun time at all. No one was out, there was no language for it, and also the spectre of AIDS was kicking off in the early 80s, so I was definitely gagging for a release from all of that stress and oppression.

NH: And then when did you first come across drag? Was it like an immediate feeling of ‘this is my world’? 

JS: The summary is, I stay on for school and I think I’m the only gay in the village. I leave school very upset and twisted and angry and scared and hating myself, always wishing that I wasn’t gay. So I was dealing with that but also starting to find work. Through that work, I started, you know, just hanging out with adults. And the only way I learned how to enter the gay scene was via cottaging and stuff like that, which is a very gay male passage of rights for a lot of people, and so I used to beg people to take me out. Then, the age of consent was 21, so I was a bit of a jailbait. People were very scared of being gay and hanging out with younger people at the time. 

There were also a lot of gender norms being pressurised on you and I think parents do it because they’re scared for you to be out and poofy and feminine. So basically, you just end up closeted in loads of ways. It’s not even just necessarily about your sexuality but your gender and how you want to present yourself to the world. But I always wanted to explore that flamboyant, larger-than-life, outrageous, colourful but glamorous aspect of the world. But it wasn’t until I ended up working in advertising that I was around a little bit of that glamour, and going to clubs a lot, and looking at all these fabulous creatures. Going to places like Kinky Glinky, which was an amazing club in the late 80s, early 90s — very famous for dragging up, and people dragging up who weren’t drag queens (the premise was to get in, you’d drag up). So that was the first time I did it in public. I had long, blonde hair. I was doing some kind of a beatnik, Electribe 101 club kid, gender neutral kind of vibe, and I just loved it. 

Then, one day I bumped into a guy in a nightclub called Johnny Wu, who’s very famous in the cabaret circuit — big drag queen — who’s now my business partner. I was almost chatting him up, and I was like, ‘what do you do?’, and he goes, ‘I’m a drag queen’, and I say, ‘yeah, so am I’, because I used to do a bit more drag by then. And he told me to go down to the George and Dragon where he had a night to hang out. And I went down there, and he was wearing a Victorian lace camisole, and he had a butt plug up his arse with a horse’s tail hanging out, holding a parasol, and he was standing on a beer barrel, turning around slowly like an art installation. And I was like, this is crazy weird shit, I want a piece of that. And Johnny asked if I could DJ, and I lied and said I could. So I went back down there with my mate who dressed me up and we did Pride Night, and from then on I just ran around with Johnny doing drag. I ditched my advertising career to become a drag queen. Eventually, we became quite well known for doing big events and being the DJs and the fun kids in the space and all that rock and roll. 

NH: You’ve been doing drag for a long time. How has your relationship with it evolved since you’ve gotten older and started owning clubs? 

JS: I don’t do it much now. I was 35 when I started properly and I really enjoyed the punk aspect of it because we never shaved, we never tucked, we would always, you know, wear a dress backwards with a mop on our heads — it was very avant garde. I think initially it was all about being quite outrageous. And Johnny’s a bit like a Pied Piper, so all these other people started dressing up around us and it became this circus troupe almost. It was a really fun time. A lot of rock and roll, a lot of hangovers. 

But I was earning a living from it, too, so I had to do a lot of brunches and DJing, and I got fed up. The pivotal moment was getting The Glory, though. Doing drag and running that at the same time was too much, and I was fed up with acting the goat and it all being so messy, so I cut down on the drag. 

NH: London night life has changed a lot since then. Have you seen that impacting Queer spaces like The Glory?

JS: Yeah, loads. I think it’s a bit of a myth that it’s just gentrification. It’s too easy to say things like that. It’s loads of things. It’s the pandemic closing loads of places, people changing, drinking culture has changed. It’s also how people consume their leisure. We’ve got all this tech, so you don’t get bored sitting at home. Whereas back in the day, you had to go out — there were four channels. It’s also the level of acceptance that the Queer community has now. We can go to Wetherspoons and not get our heads kicked in. So there’s less of a need for these super secretive, for-us-only spaces. But the government doesn’t help. These things aren’t subsidised. I mean, we’re a grassroots venue and we definitely had our moments of near closure running The Glory.

NH: With the likes of RuPaul’s Drag Race coming out, how has that affected the Queer nightlife scene? Do you think it’s become more sanitised and mainstream, or more interesting? 

JS: It’s more mainstream, but it’s still really good. People complain a lot about it not being as underground and subversive as drag was, but it’s great that it’s given more people opportunities to work and earn money. There are a lot of dancers, a lot of actors, a lot of comedians that don’t get a look in because they’re too Queer in their presentation, but they can get work using their skills via drag. It’s quite beautiful. But, on the other side, it does create a kind of homogenisation of something that’s quite radical and transgressive. It’s supposed to be shocking that you’re scaring society’s perception of what it is to be male or female. You shouldn’t just be defined by what a male-led society has constructed for you. I think the future will see a more fluid way of people presenting themselves. You can see it already with how people dress and express themselves and the talk around non-binaryness and transness. These are things you wouldn’t have heard so much about 10 years ago. I’m really looking forward to that day when trans people are as respected and understood as other people within the Queer community.

NH: Could you tell me about some of your craziest moments at The Glory?

JS: When we were closing, I was going through loads of old posters and stuff and I just remembered being in negligee doing the ice bucket challenge in front of about 200 people, which was pretty horrendous. I also fucked all the electricity on New Year’s Eve one night by stapling through an electrical cord while I was putting up some ‘2012’ balloons and plunged the place into a power cut. Another New Year’s Eve, I turned around and Chelsea Clinton and Keira Knightley were out on the lash with Erdem, the fashion guy. They didn’t stay long — they probably tried to use those horrible toilets and freaked out. But we had a supermodel party there once for Burberry. Cara Delevingne and all these really high-end models were there getting wasted with Robert Pattinson. We’ve done loads of crazy things with the pub. We’ve turfed it out and had an indoor festival before. And once, we hired all these Jacuzzis and put them in the basement. We also used to have loads of lock-ins, and I actually had one after we gave it up. I went in with a mate like a week later because I knew there was a bit of booze here and there, so we were in a derelict pub with all the decor hanging off and the bar deconstructed, and I just sat there like an old git, swigging on some rum. 

NH: The Divine opened in February. How’s it all going? 

JS: It’s going really well. Everyone loves it. It’s totally different, and that’s why we called it The Divine, not The Glory. The whole ethos is to have an accessible performance space for anyone that wants it. We’ve got a really strong open-door policy and that basically brings in a new, youthful group of people who are enthusiastic and creative and relish those opportunities. So that is what continues from The Glory, but what this place has is a banging club space. It’s insane on the weekends. I’m having to learn how to create a space that’s very club-led while still trying to have an alternative Queer cabaret cultural arm to it as well, because clubs can lose their warmth when you don’t have, like, pop-up performances and strange little plays and spoken word nights and reinterpretations of Shakespeare and all of those things that are coming up soon.

I can’t believe my luck going from a little boy cross-dressing his teddy bear and just staring at the telly, dreaming of meeting these people to actually being right in the centre of it. And, you know, I’m 55, I’m not supposed to be doing stuff like this. I’m not supposed to be dressing like a toddler and going to discos. I’m supposed to be moving to Margate and becoming a florist. I’m just ageing disgracefully. My gran would be proud — she liked a bit of outrageousness. It feels a bit naughty and a bit peculiar, like the Queer scene is. One of the few poignant things my mum said to me was all she wanted was for me to be independent. And I think what she meant by that was not to be tied down by your class or your gender, just to be free and to aim high and to just be content and not feel ashamed. And I think that’s what I’ve gotten out of this because I wasn’t always this headstrong, confident person. It’s the Queer culture that’s brought that out in me, so I’m very blessed.