“Oh, this is stressful,” says Drag Me to Dinner host Murray Hill. For a show that is so over the top, this is quite the understatement. The high-stress kitchen chaos of The Bear has nothing on this hybrid reality show, which appeared in the US earlier this year. It is “the best show about duelling parties thrown by pairs of drag queens that the world has ever known,” as one of its many co-hosts, Neil Patrick Harris, quips. He and Hill are joined by Broadway star Haneefah Wood, actor, chef and “life of the party” David Burtka, and the acidic drag queen Bianca Del Rio. With five hosts/judges, it continues to greedily pile on the elements, cherry-picking parts from different reality competitions: it’s Come Dine With Me, it’s Interior Design Masters, it’s the performing challenges on Drag Race, it’s MasterChef and it even has a brief quiz show element. Clearly, its maxim is more is more.
There might be a reason nobody in television has thought to try this particularly intense combination of ingredients before. The first half of an episode, which works pretty well, tasks the pairs of drag queens with making the food and drinks for a dinner party, to a specific theme. The first is “Tropical Kiki”, with BenDelaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon opting for a“dessert island” concept, and Jackie Beat and Sherry Vine choosing to showcase talking birds and a cheese volcano. The cooking part is fun and anarchic, though I pity the poor crew who had to clean up the mess afterwards. “This is the first time I’ve really cooked,” says Dela, though to call it cooking is pushing it a little. This is puns, gags, wisecracks and a bit of throwing stuff around the kitchen. Burtka occasionally steps in to help, though he has a drag alter ego, Sue Chef, who can also step in to cause havoc if the queens lose the quiz round.
