Fresh from conquering the kitchen on Celebrity MasterChef and snatching the crown on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Ginger Johnson is saddling up once more. The award-winning cabaret anarchist — once described as an ‘unholy drag spawn of Evel Knievel, Lucille Ball and Danny La Rue’ — has announced her brand new UK tour, Show Pony, galloping into theatres from September 2026 through to February 2027.

As the self-declared ‘silliest sausage in showbiz’ prepares to prance across the UK once more, we caught up with Ginger to talk telly triumphs, theatrical chaos, who should be behind the bar of The Queen Vic and why everyone of us has a pony inside us waiting to kick down the stable door. We spoke to Ginger in a cafe in Camden where she assured me the hissing sound was from the coffee machine and not from a runaway steam train.

So, how is the ‘silliest sausage in showbiz’ today, Ginger?
The sun is out so I’m doing pretty well. What’s that phrase? ‘A spring has sprung, the grass is riz. I wonder where the birdies is.’ Well, surprise, I’m the birdies.

Well, I’ve never heard that one before.
Never?!

No, but I will be noting it down. Now I’m not sure if I am being gaslit by the internet, but is it true that your name comes from the Nickelodeon series As Told by Ginger?
Absolutely not. Where did you get that from? I’ve never even seen that show.

That’s one of those wonderful things of Gemini A.I.
Oh, I see. There’s loads of stuff on Wikipedia that’s absolutely not true either, but you’re not allowed to edit your own Wikipedia, so I can’t do anything about it.

Could you not just slip somebody ten quid to go in and have an edit?
That would involve me caring. I quite like that there are some lies out there. It keeps a bit of mystery. I’ll tell you a couple of lies today just to keep that going.

So where does the name come from then?
Well, it comes from the hair. My drag mum taught me that somebody needs to be able to recognise you from the other side of the dark nightclub with all the haze and the lights. So, that’s where my look comes from, and the ginger hair comes from Lucille Ball, who’s one of my huge, huge comedy and life icons. I called myself Ginger to keep it memorable for everybody and then I chose Johnson because I wanted a name that, when I eventually ended up on the front cover of the Radio Times, wasn’t too rude to print.

And is it just a happy coincidence that it’s also a play on words for the appendage of a man who has ginger hair?
Well, we don’t really use that term in the UK that much, but I think when I went on Drag Race, that’s certainly what Ru understood.

You’ve just come off the back of winning Celebrity Masterchef.
Yeah, that’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

If you were going to do another reality TV show, which would it be?
Anything! I love a challenge. I love anything that can push me out of my comfort zone and anything that puts drag into a different setting. That is a really exciting challenge for me. I’d like to do the big ones, The Traitors or Taskmaster. Oh and I’d love to jump out of a helicopter.

That all sounds quite fun.
Although I did put my back out tying my shoelaces the other day, so maybe that’s not a wise choice for me.

What made you sweat more, cooking in drag or being judged by Michelle Visage?
I would say they were equal pegging. The thing about Michelle is that she is such a wonderful person, her critiques on TV can come across as being quite harsh. The truth is Michelle really does have our best interests at heart when she’s judging us. I have an enormous crush on Michelle.

Were you worried there was going to be any kind of Mrs. Doubtfire Double Titty Inferno? Did you do anything to mitigate the possibility of this?
I didn’t, but I believe that the production company did have to do an extra risk assessment because I am the most flammable human being in the known universe. I didn’t wear heels in the kitchen either but partly the heels was because if I’d been wearing them I would have been an extra seven inches away from the food that I was cooking.

People want to know what the hell you were using for a setting spray or wig glue to keep it all on during that heat and mania of a kitchen?
The truth is, it’s the primer more than the setting spray and the glue that keeps my wig on could keep a building together if indeed to.

We talked about putting drag into scenarios where it isn’t always expected. So I was thinking, what about putting a drag queen in a soap? We have Peggy, Liz, Pat. Is it time for a literal drag queen to get behind the pumps?
I mean, first of all, those three women are all drag icons of mine. They are basically drag queens. But it would be fabulous to see a drag queen propping up the bar in any of the soaps, I think. It would be a nice change, because often we’re getting thrown out of pubs.

If you could be in any sitcom, present or past, what one would you want to be a part of?
Oh, wow. That’s huge. I mean, the number one would be I Love Lucy but also Ab Fab is obviously absolutely iconic, and I think I could go toe-to-toe with Patsy. I can see that happening.

Speaking of TV, have you been keeping up to date with your season sister on UK vs. the World?
Absolutely! Kathy Bastard! I’m keeping a very close eye on what she’s up to over there. She’s doing so well I’m really enjoying it. It’s a really fab mix of queens, and I love to see the different styles of international drag all in the same place, battling it out, because drag develops in its own way all over the world. Even the drag that you see in Manchester is different than the drag that you see in London.

And what did you think of her decision not to save Sminty with the chippy tea?
I think I was as surprised as everybody else. But I also understand why she would want to keep Mariah there, because Mariah is a legend.

We caught up with Kate a couple of months ago, we were talking about theatre. You started off in the cabaret and theatre world, correct?
Well, I went to acting school. That was my plan, I was going to be a very serious Shakespearean actor but it turned out I just wasn’t really enough of a serious person. I got distracted along the way by the wigs and the sequins and I’m very glad that I did, because, you know, my life rolled out in front of me after that.

Do you think there’s an inexplicable tie between British drag and the theatre?
A lot of people’s first experience of drag is seeing a pantomime dame. That was certainly mine. From that moment, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. But the fabulous thing about drag is, especially in the last ten years, that it really gives creative people an opportunity to interpret the art form in their own way. We get loads of really interesting, outrageous, absurd recreations of drag and experiments. Some of my favourite drag performers are not kings or queens, they are monsters or pigs.

Your last show was talking about trying to achieve your childhood dream of becoming a daredevil. Would you consider drag a daredevil sport?
I’ve had more injuries from drag than I have from being shot out of a cannon, which is what that last show was about but if I can be vaguely serious for a moment, I think anybody that takes on the challenge of subverting the accepted roles that we have in life is playing a dangerous game. And that is what is spicy and exciting about the art form of drag, but also can increasingly make it quite difficult.

This new tour is pony themed, you say that it’s going to be completely off the reins what does that look like?
That relates to the Ginger Johnson that people have seen on television. That version is curated. I am very lucky that in both of the major things that I’ve done I really do feel like the version of me that has been shown is me. However, experiencing me live where I am within touching, spitting and smelling distance is a slightly different scenario.

You’ve got some original songs in this show. What has been your musical inspiration?
It’s kind of the music from my childhood. I spent a lot of it listening to Jazz, Motown and Soul music. That’s the music that I inherited from my parents. And the show is about the show pony inside of us. All of us have a spirit inside of us that sometimes wants to step out there on the stage and have people appreciate them. Some of us, that pony is a little bit stronger, a little bit more forceful than others.

Sometimes it’s a Clydesdale, others it’s a Shetland?
Exactly, exactly. And the show is really about me looking at that relationship that I have with my show pony, how that’s changed over the years and the amazing adventures that we’ve been on together.

Do you think horses are always technically wearing high heels?
What a great question. Are they more like fake nails? I don’t know. What I do know is that when I get a new pair of shoes, I also have to have a big burly man around, lift my foot up and shave half of it away so I can fit into the shoe. I’ll never look at a horse the same way again.

And does the big burly man also nail them into your foot, so they never fall off?
Yeah, well, you don’t want to lose one along the way.

Right? You don’t want to slip it off. Okay. So you can sing, you can design, you can sew, you can cook. OK, is there anything that Ginger doesn’t do well?
Not yet.

Finally Loverboy is named after the biggest selling single of 2001…in America or maybe globally?! So we always ask, what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
I know absolutely nothing about Mariah Carey, nothing at all. My perception of Mariah Carey is that she’s sort of in the deep freezer in somebody’s garage most of the year and then the day after Halloween they thaw her out which is a great gig if you can get it. 

Ginger Johnson’s Show Pony tour begins this September. 
For full Live Dates and Tickets see www.gingerjohnson.co.uk

Interview by Edward Westbrook