When hard-working single father Luke stumbles across an underground nightclub, he meets Aysha, a beautiful, seductive woman. Their first kiss yields fireworks — which are immediately followed by Luke’s sobering realization that Aysha is not the cisgender woman he thought, but a remarkably femme drag queen. Unable to deny the spark between them the pair are forced down the unexpected path of transformation, where they must question their identities and confront their individual truths.
Ben Hardy
Luke
Jason Patel
Aysha / Ashiq
Sagar Radia
Faiz
Michael Karim
Hammad
Nisha Nayar
Shamim
Hannah Onslow
Emma
Kate Lindsey
Charlie
Grant Davis
Gary
Val The Brown Queen
Zina
Taylor Sullivan
Jamie
Ali Afzal
Karen
Dan Linney
Danny
Karen Sampford
Amy
Saba Shiraz
Rehana
Aqeel Torres
Superfan
Harrie Dobby
Michelle
Karen Bartholomew
Mrs Harris
Jenny O'Leary
Janine
Charlie Dilon-Maynard
Harvey
Madelyn Smedley
Poppy
Anthony Pius
Bolly
Adeel Ahmed
Devi
Ravin J. Ganatra
Imran
Angela Phinnimore
Nurse Nicholson
Director
Sally El Hosaini
Director, Writer
James Floyd
June 14, 2024
7
"Luke" (Ben Hardy) stumbles upon a bar where the largely young and beautiful Asian clientele are enjoying a dazzling performance on stage from "Aysha" (Jason Patel). Despite the fact that he's only just got laid in a field, he's captivated by her and so when she comes to say hello after her routine, he is quite besotted. Thing is - well those Adam's Apples - they are a dead giveaway and "Luke" flees in polite terror, but terror nonetheless. This leaves "Aysha" with a problem, though, as her possessive pal "Faiz" (Sagar Radia) goes off in a strop leaving her without a lift to a lucrative gig in Birmingham. She was also a bit smitten by "Luke" so tracks him down to the garage he works in with his father, and offers him £200 to be her chauffeur. Reluctant, he remembers that he has promised is son "Jamie" (Taylor Sullivan) a trip to Disneyland, and that's not going to pay for itself. The journey isn't really that far, but when a few other drag queens cadge a lift, too - well, let's just say that "Luke" gets a look at a culture he's never experienced before. The plot itself is fairly predictable, not dissimilar to "Femme" from last year, but there's a fun degree of chemistry between Hardy and Patel that maybe a little too simplistically, but still entertainingly, both challenges and reinforces stereotypes. What's eminently clear is that "Ashiq" is an unhappy and unfulfilled man who comes alive when his alter ego takes over, but is there any future at all in a friendship quite so viscerally at odds. It's tightly cast, and works best when it's just the two lead actors engagingly messing about, getting to know and trust each other and, well... who knows? To be fair, it doesn't need a cinema screening but it is an amiable, occasionally bitchy, film and I quite enjoyed it.