Demi Pointe is a drag queen who has made a big impact in Dundee.
The 25-year-old co-hosts and stars in a weekly drag bingo show, Bingo Wigs, held at Church Dundee on Ward Road, where she is also the manager.
The presence of Demi, whose name out of drag is Harry J W Yardley, has also been felt on an emotional level.
Biggest fan
Baldragon Academy student Lauren Stirling, 16, is a keen fan having last year watched Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK season 2 to cheer on Dundonian Ellie Diamond, who came fourth.
“I loved the makeup and outfits the queens wore,” says Lauren. “Another Scottish queen, Lawrence Chaney, took the crown and after the season was over I went to see them perform live in Church in Dundee.
“The show was brilliant, and this led to me going to a weekly local drag bingo show called Bingo Wigs, also held in Church.
“There, local queens perform dances and lip syncs in between rounds of bingo. One queen immediately stood out for me: Demi Pointe.
“She co-hosts Bingo Wigs with Anne Spank, performing one or two new dances at every show.”
Last autumn, Lauren signed up to the Career Ready scheme, in which she is being mentored by The Courier’s Stephen Eighteen.
As part of the programme, the budding journalist got the chance to interview Demi, who spoke about running Church, making a living out of drag and why becoming a queen helped her feel “like me for the first time”.
Here is Lauren’s feature:
‘I broke my foot three times’
Demi, 25, grew up in Exeter, Devon. She moved to Arbroath when she was six, and finally to Dundee aged 17 and she’s been there ever since.
Demi incorporates a huge number of dance pieces in her act.
“I was a gymnast for about 12 years and dance was kind of a natural progression from that,” Demi says.
“I broke my foot three times so I decided I needed to just step away from gymnastics. I took a bit of a break, and when I turned 18 there was a school offering contemporary dance.”
She went for an audition and got a place at the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, in association with the University of West London.
“Four years later I got my degree and that’s how I just kind of fell into dance,” she adds.
‘I looked like a man in a wig’
From a young age Demi loved dressing up, with Faye from Steps being a favourite look. However, becoming a fully-formed drag queen took time and practice.
“The first time I got into drag, I looked like a man in a wig,” she recalls.
“My makeup skills were not good; I looked crunchy, but I also felt like me for the first time.
“I also remember looking at myself, I didn’t match my skin tone and foundations. I was Casper White with big blue eyes that came all the way to the top of my wig – it was a vivid look.
“At the time I was thinking ‘I’m so beautiful’ but looking back it looked like a mask. I made a mask and I put the mask on, and that was me in drag.”
‘I kind of wanted to wear what I made’
Demi later went to university where she briefly studied fashion design.
“I love to make clothes, and I love doing makeup and styling hair,” she says. “So it was this weird progression where I was doing some wigs for people and making outfits for girls.
“And I kind of wanted to wear what I made rather than the boy outfit that I made for myself – I wanted to wear the nice pink rhinestoned outfit that she’s got.”
Demi did a couple of performances online for a silent disco, but it was in Dundee where she first performed a full, live drag show.
‘It felt like the phone call for Drag Race’
A couple of months before the pandemic hit, Demi decided to go along to Bingo Wigs.
Like so many venues, Church had to close during lockdown, and Demi used the time to work on perfecting her drag look and performance.
When Church re-opened it was looking for a new host of Bingo Wigs.
“I applied for the job as the host and I got it. I remember the phone call, it felt like the phone call for Drag Race – ‘oh my God, OK that’s amazing!’, Demi recalls. “I’m kind of shocked to be where I am, but I’m so thankful.”
Then later in 2021, Church was looking for a new manager for the venue and she got the job.
It was important for Demi to have the backup of a salary. If she lived in Glasgow, she could potentially do four or five shows and make a living from that, but the Dundee scene is smaller.
“I could not financially live off doing this show,” she says. “It’s one of those things where you’re scared to not have something where you get a salary because if you go independent doing drag you might have six gigs one week and only one the next.
“So you have to budget, and I’m a really bad money person. So I like the support of having both [the drag shows and managing the venue].”
‘She inspires me massively’
Professionally, Demi takes inspiration from RuPaul and what it has done for the world and the community that she’s in. But in her personal life, it is her sister who has been a massive inspiration.
“Me and my sister grew up together, we’re essentially like twins even though we’re seven years apart,” Demi says.
“We have this relationship where I didn’t really grow up with my mum or dad and neither did she, we grew up raising each other so she inspires me massively.”
‘That would be so beneficial for queens and kings’
Like many drag queens, Demi would love to be on RuPaul’s Drag Race one day. But she’s also looking to a future where she can help support and promote other drag queens and kings who are just starting out.
She recently took a step towards this by hosting an open stage night at Church, where many of the regular drag queens and kings at Bingo Wigs got up on stage and performed, many for the first time.
“We’re all here to support each other, whether you do drag or don’t do drag,” Demi says.
“We’re all here as a community to encourage and be with everyone. I would love my own company where I could produce shows.
“I think that would be so beneficial for queens and kings who rely on that one or two gigs a month to come out in drag.”
I will finish by thanking Demi Pointe for her time.
If you’re looking for a fun night out, come along to Bingo Wigs at Church on a Tuesday night. You’ll see amazing drag performances from Demi, Anne Spank and more, and even have the chance to win some money at bingo. And, as Demi says at the end of every Bingo Wigs, “support local drag”.
Church is a 14+ venue but underage customers have to be accompanied by an adult aged 21+.
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