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The multitalented Verushka Darling continues to raise the bar for Australian drag. She spoke with Brad Johnston.
When is a drag queen not just a drag queen?
When she’s also a model, corporate MC, TV presenter, producer and scriptwriter. That’s Verushka Darling for you, one of Sydney’s most accomplished artistes.
Given her background as hostess of MTV’s Verushka’s Closet – not to mention those heady fashion days that saw her modelling for Jean Paul Gaultier on his program, Eurotrash – Verushka was the perfect choice for this week’s Mardi Gras fashion feature. As you can see on the following pages, Verushka has a unique style – just this side of demented – which has earned her a large and adoring following.
The towering, androgynous Verushka emerged on the Sydney scene in the early ’90s and quickly established herself as a breath of fresh (some might say intoxicating) air. Guerilla performances at the short-lived Viper Room in the Beauchamp Hotel led to gigs at the Taxi Club and Annie’s Bar where, with partner in crime Claire De Lune, she defied all preconceptions and ripped up the drag rule book in the process.
Anyone who has witnessed one of Claire and Verushka’s shows will need no convincing. Their Hey Homo extravaganzas gleefully mashed up Hollywood and pop culture, resulting in brain-searing images such as ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ in bathtub being doused in Paul Newman’s sauce. (That would be a nod to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.)
This sort of twisted take on performance served Verushka well on television. Having gone through three audition stages, she emerged a “stand out”.
“It was only supposed to be a pilot,” she says, “but the first episode tripled the ratings for the time-slot, so I became a regular fixture.”
At this point Verushka unleashes The Laugh. It has to be heard to be believed. At least an octave above her impeccably enunciated speaking voice, it’s an infectious, hysterical hoot. I once wrote that it sounded like Yma Sumac being tickled to death. She hasn’t lost it.
Verushka’s penchant for the unexpected led to many memorable moments.
“I would do interviews and a lot of kooky stuff,” she explains. “I’d go out and do strange activities, especially towards the end of it when I was in space. The concept was that I’d been abducted by aliens and I was broadcasting the show from the mothership. The aliens would send me out to do crazy things; I did one whole show underwater, in drag, inside the shark tank at Manly Oceanarium.”
Far more than just a pretty face, Verushka soon impressed the powers that be with her whipsmart mouth and writing ability; before long she progressed to associate producer, then fulltime promo producer and scriptwriter for all VH1 award shows. Eventually, she was writing and overseeing the company’s six websites.
Currently, though, Verushka is back on the local stage. “I’m having a break,” she says, with that laugh. “Basically it all got a bit too much and I needed a change. I decided to drop out and become a fulltime showgirl again, intending only to do it for about a month. Seven months down the track I’m still doing it.”
And punters should be grateful. The ingenuity Verushka has displayed over the years, the sheer creative will, has produced some brilliant shows. That they were executed on the smell of a make up-caked cotton ball is all the more impressive.
“We used to do things on shoestrings and favours,” she recalls. “A lot of people did us a lot of favours because they liked what we were doing. But it got to the point where the budgets were getting smaller and they were expecting more. People don’t realise how much it costs. You can pull things out of your arse but it’s much easier if you have a budget.
“I remember back in the Albury days we only had a $200 budget and we’d have to work for six weeks before we made our money back.”
With Mardi Gras looming, the topic of the organisation’s near-demise and uncertain future comes up.
“In a sense Mardi Gras’ success was its failure,” she says. “At 25,000 people per party, people were going, ‘It’s too big’. I remember people saying that all the time. You’d lose your friends at the beginning of the party and you’d have no hope of meeting them again.
“My personal thought is that when it collapsed it should have been left to die for a year or two and people would have gone, my god, we’ve lost something really magical, and that would have motivated them. Whereas I think they got cynical about it. It was reinstated and because everything was done on the cheap, everything seemed cheap, so people weren’t overly excited.”
The 30th anniversary, of course, is another matter. And yes, Verushka will be performing. Any hints?
“It’s one of those crazy situations where we were all told about it, we all told everyone – and then we had to sign a form promising to keep it secret.
“So officially, no, I can’t say.”
But what is she wearing?
“I’m wearing something very shiny and yet also completely transparent in the colour themes required.” Always a lady.
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