‘I don’t know if I can get away with this’: Inside the making of feel-good queer comedy Smoggie Queens

Smoggie Queens is the deliciously salty tonic that we need at the end of a testing year. In the very first scene of BBC Three’s wilfully silly new sitcom, drag matriarch Mam (seasoned character actor Mark Benton) casually recalls the time she got a hamster stuck to her “gooch”, or perineum.  

Written by and starring Phil Dunning, the six-part series follows the outlandish antics of a largely LGBTQ+ friendship group in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire. “Smoggie” is a local colloquial term used to refer to people from Middlesbrough and the wider Teesside region. Dunning says it was originally a bit of a putdown – one deployed with particular relish by Middlesbrough’s Geordie neighbours. “The area used to have a lot of heavy industry, so back in the day there was a lot of smog,” explains Dunning, who was born and raised in Teesside. “But then we reclaimed it and now everyone [who lives here] is just a proud smoggie.”

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An infectious sense of pride – both queer and regional – drives Dunning’s show, which was filmed in and around Middlesbrough with a predominantly local crew. “We did a day in Whitby and a couple in Hartlepool, but we never went more than 20 minutes away, which was lovely,” Dunning says. 

Dunning now lives in South London but he was determined to show his hometown in “a nicer light” than the national conversation normally affords it. “Middlesbrough usually features in crime shows or things about ‘the worst places to live in Britain’, so I wanted to show that there’s also a lot of joy here,” he says.  

Dunning’s posse of “smoggie queens” are definitely a joyful lot. Led by Benton’s benevolent battleaxe Mam, they drink, bicker, apply glitter to their faces and support one another through various personal and professional adversities. Dunning’s character Dickie can be withering to the crew’s newest member Stewart (Elijah Young), a callow young gay man who isn’t fully out of the closet, but his hilariously blunt rudeness never spills over into cruelty. “His nastiness is really just a front hiding his vulnerable side – he needs them as much as they need him,” Dunning says. 

Meanwhile, daffy romantic Lucinda (Coronation Street alum Alexandra Mardell) is navigating the treacherous local dating pool and anxious Sal (Patsy Lowe) is harbouring dreams of becoming a singer. Thankfully, she has more vocal talent than Dickie, who memorably murders an Adele ballad after being dumped in episode one. 

Like many of the best British sitcoms from Absolutely Fabulous to Gavin & Stacey, Smoggie Queens succeeds because it has characters you want to spend time with. “When I started writing it, I wanted it to be funny, funny, funny,” says Dunning. But as he developed the series with producer Chris Jones “we realised it needed depth and heart as well”.  

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Dunning has previously appeared in TV comedies including Mae Martin’s Feel Good and The Emily Atack Show, but Smoggie Queens is his first self-penned project to get a green light. 

The sitcom has benefited from the BBC’s five-year pledge to spend £25 million in the north-east by 2026. Jones has also said that the success of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK made the show an easier sell than it might have been in the past. Fittingly, Smoggie Queens will premiere on BBC Three on 28 November right after the latest Drag Race series finale.  

Like fellow actor-creators Sophie Willan (Alma’s Not Normal) and Mawaan Rizwan (Juice) – both of whom have won BAFTAs for their BBC sitcoms – Dunning honed his comedy chops at the Edinburgh Fringe. For several years, he did stand-up by night while working 40 hours a week at the Shakespeare’s Globe box office. Today, he’s still on the books of an agency that supplies temp staff to West End theatres, though he hasn’t picked up a shift in a while. 

Dunning’s favourite TV comedies during his formative years included Jessica Hynes and Simon Pegg’s wacky flatshare sitcom Spaced, Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash’s masterpiece of northern naturalism The Royle Family and French and Saunders’ faintly unhinged BBC sketches. “Their film parodies were better than the actual films,” he says.  

Elements of these series have trickled down into Smoggie Queens. Episode two features Mam in full drag driving a fairy tale horse and carriage through Middlesbrough and episode four is a full-bodied horror spoof. “When I was writing the ending, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can get away with this,’” he says with a laugh. 

Other surreal flourishes include a cameo from Michelle Visage, the hyper-glamorous Drag Race judge, who is cast against type as a dowdy office drone called Elaine. “She’s such a trouper and really got into character,” Dunning says. “She was like, ‘What if I play Elaine with sort of drooped shoulders?’ which was absolutely perfect.” 

No one could accuse Smoggie Queens of being an issues-led comedy, but its sass and banter are firmly rooted in truth. In episode two, we see the differing ways in which Dickie and his more straight presenting ex Harrison (Peter McPherson) are treated by an obnoxious co-worker. 

“Harrison isn’t hiding the fact he’s gay, but he’s seen the abuse that Dickie gets and doesn’t want it for himself,” Dunning says. “That’s why he embraces this masculine persona where he’s like, ‘I’m not camp like him – I’m ‘normal’.” 

But above all, Smoggie Queens feels like a celebration of chosen family: the kin-like bond that groups of queer people form to navigate a sometimes-hostile world. “It was so important to get that element in,” Dunning says. “These characters are all a bit mad and they’ve been brought together by different circumstances, but they really have each other’s backs.” 

Smoggie Queens begins is on BBC Three from 28 November. It will also be available as a box set on BBC iPlayer. 

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