‘Stunning, but so wrong’: inside raucous new drag sitcom Smoggie Queens

It’s loud, proud and very, very daft: the new BBC comedy plunges viewers into Middlesbrough’s hilariously catty drag scene. The creator and star Phil Dunning talks prosecco, parmos – and picking the worst wigs possible

Most sitcoms don’t imply that the lead character has died twice in the first 15 minutes. Most sitcoms don’t have an entire episode spoofing the film Titanic. And, even if they did, most sitcoms would not dress one of the main characters as the iceberg.

But Smoggie Queens is not like other comedies. BBC Three’s new series is a surreal, deadpan and occasionally very rude tale of primarily LGBTQ+ friends who hang out under the same roof. It takes the model of a traditional family sitcom and refocuses it around a “chosen family” of people from different generations.