“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.
If that doesn’t add up to anything resembling a coherent premise, then don’t worry. This is hectic, busy and it revels in its own chaos. It is always a pleasure to see drag legends riffing off against each other and using the Pit Crew-esque “Handy Helpers” to attempt to come up with a menu that is at least vaguely edible. But, really, nobody is watching it for the culinary tips, and this was never going to be fine dining. One course, in a later episode, is simply Lots of Big Meat, while one queen admits that she can only make cereal. Yet it feels oddly in keeping with American cooking competitions, which tend to be more bombastic and make British ones look like a genteel tea party at a silent retreat.
Drag Me to Dinner judges the queens on three separate elements: food and drink, design and decor, and entertainment and overall vibe. Here’s where it starts to feel a little top heavy, because, after deciding on what to serve, the queens then have to decorate what looks like the template for an Ikea dining room, only it’s as if instead of flat-pack furniture, they have been given a brief trolley dash through Poundland. It culminates in the dinner party itself, which is an improvised performance and which goes on for ever. Fans of Drag Race will know that not every queen is a natural comedian, and this section, which inexplicably takes up a massive part of each episode, does nothing to contradict this theory.
Much like Paramount’s recently canned Queen of the Universe, Drag Me to Dinner doesn’t feel like an essential addition to the drag TV queendom. Chaos can be thrilling, and this certainly has its witty moments, but it does feel more like the sort of chaos that comes from rushing to finish your homework, rather than ripping up and mocking existing TV tropes. It has a meta running commentary about the show itself, such as pointing out when Hill is reading from the autocue, which only adds to the sense that there are too many chefs in the kitchen here. There is just so much going on.
That’s not to say there is nothing to enjoy. Drag fans will be pleased with the all-star lineup, and it improves as it goes along, as the comedy gets pushed to the front. But I would suggest that this is more of an occasional treat than a feast of a binge-watch. I’m not sure I could take more than an episode or two in one sitting, such is the level of everything, everywhere, all at once. “A show about drag queens cookin’ and drinkin’? What could possibly go wrong?” asks Del Rio. Funnily enough, it’s not the drag queens cookin’ and drinkin’ that flattens this show out, but its big, hungry appetite for more.
Drag Me To Dinner is on Disney+
