A UK drag tour targeted primarily at audiences aged 14 and up is raising safeguarding concerns due to the highly graphic nature of the performer’s usual events.
“An Evening with Jimbo” is set to be held across multiple venues in the United Kingdom from January 11 to 22 of 2023. Tickets are currently available for purchase through Licklist, an online bookings platform, which describes the upcoming performance as “getting up close and personal with an evening with Jimbo.”
The posters for the event featured highly sexualized, graphic cartoon depictions of James Insell, known better by his stage name as “Jimbo,” in his various performance “personas.”
All but one of the events is slated as being for audiences 14 years of age and up, the single exception being the performance in Manchester on January 20. This is likely due to its venue being an adult gay bar, while the rest are held at comedy clubs.
But despite the majority of the shows being open to minors, Insell’s typical fare is anything but child-friendly.
Insell, 40, is a Canadian national who rose to notoriety after participating in Canada’s Drag Race in 2020 and RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK Versus the World in 2022. He utilizes multiple drag personas as part of his acts, many of which will reportedly be seen at the 14+ events if the event poster is any indication.
One of those personas, Casper the Baloney Ghost, was described by Insell as a way to showcase his “weird and wacky and wonderful clown self.” Speaking to Gay Times UK in February, Insell stated the intention of Casper was to show that “talent is always deep inside,” adding that he keeps a stack of baloney meat in his costume to “fall out of [his] man-gina.” Casper is depicted as having a zipper “vulva,” and is perpetually “pregnant.”
In April, Insell launched an official music video for his single “Free & Horny.” The video, which was sponsored by an HIV/AIDS prescription drug service, features gratuitously sexual lyrics and visuals.
Some of Insell’s various personas appear in the video, including Casper the Baloney Ghost and his signature drag character, which utilizes a head-to-toe prosthetic “female body,” complete with comically large breasts. In a photo of the suit posted to social media earlier this year, the suit is also seen to have a faux-vulva.
At one point in the video, Insell as Casper is seen watching a sex tape and slapping a large loaf of baloney sticking through his zipper “vulva.” Casper is seated on a couch watching a “sex tape” with another actor dressed as Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s IT. The clown suggestively strokes Casper’s “pregnant” belly while they watch the sexual acts.
In other scenes, Insell, while wearing the “female body” costume, engages in sex acts with multiple different men, at one point feeding the HIV/AIDS medication to one of his partners.
But even Insell’s live performances are littered with highly sexual content.
In September, Insell shared a clip from one of his UK drag shows with caption “The Load that Broke the Camels Back.” The video shows Insell in his “female” drag persona with a prosthetic set of testicles dangling from his backside. The prosthetic on Insell’s lower half breaks open, releasing a white fluid all over the stage. The performance’s liquid mess, paired with the suggestive caption, point to a sexual connotation.
Most of Insell’s past live performances appear to be highly explicit, with members of the audience often being invited to touch his breast prosthetics. The performances also feature highly sexual, suggestive acts, such as Insell stuffing the vagina of a blow-up doll with money while audience members cheered. Insell has also dressed as a blow-up doll, complete with inflatable vulva, during past performances.
It is unclear what Insell’s set will look like during the January performance in Nottingham, but the poster promoting the event features most of the drag “personas” he has used in past adult-only venues.
Insell’s UK tour is being organized by a drag performance company named Klub Kids, which was launched in 2013. The name of the company is directly inspired by Club Kids, a group of dance club personalities popularized in New York City’s gay scene in the 1980s and 90s.
Club Kids ultimately collapsed after one of its founding members, gay club booker Michael Alig, was convicted of the brutal torture, murder, and dismemberment of fellow Club Kids member, Andre Melendez in 1997. Alig was paroled in 2014, and went on to promote “drag kids” such as Desmond Napoles, also known as “Desmond is Amazing.” Alig died of an overdose in 2020.
Drag shows and their appropriateness for minors have become hot topics over the last few years, especially since the controversial spread of Drag Queen Story Hours across North America and Europe. The controversy has been stoked by the recent arrests of multiple prominent drag queens for child sexual abuse-related offenses.
Drag queen events for youth have also become the subject of protests across the United States. In October, armed protestors and counter-protestors clashed outside of an Oregon drag queen storytime event after it was discovered an 11-year-old female child would be performing. “Vanellope” was often ‘tipped’ by adult male drag performers were found to have sent money to the child via a Venmo account set up in her name.
Days later, it was discovered “Vanellope’s” drag coach was facing child sexual exploitation material charges after exchanging abuse images with pedophiles on the internet.
Earlier this week, a transgender drag queen event directed at children in Denton, Texas was provided security from protestors by black-clad Antifa members armed with loaded guns.
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