Doctor Who star Jinkx Monsoon wants to play this iconic musical role

RuPaul’s Drag Race legend and Doctor Who villain Jinkx Monsoon is looking ahead – and dreaming of playing manifesting a blood-thirsty murderess.

In addition to being the only Drag Race queen to take home the crown twice and being the first to star in a leading role in BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who, the trans-femme performer is also making huge waves in New York’s theatre scene.

In 2023, she won the part of Mama Morton in Chicago on Broadway, a role she’ll briefly reprise at the end of June. Since then, she’s starred as Audrey in the queer favourite, off-Broadway adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors, to rapturous applause

As her Little Shop of Horrors stint ends, and with her time as the Doctor’s campest nemesis of all time, Maestro, now over, Jinkx has her eyes set firmly on the next role she wants.

“It has always been [my dream to play] Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd,” she told Paper magazine earlier this week. While I would never say no to playing her in the current running revival production, in order to have this dream fulfilled, I’d want to originate a performance of her.

“I gotta say, I love taking over roles. It’s a really fun and unique challenge as an actor. I feel ready to put my stamp on a character before anyone else does.”

Sweeney Todd is currently being staged on Broadway, with two-time Tony-Award-winner Sutton Foster playing Mrs Lovett, the barber’s murderous pie-making wife. Until earlier this month, Heartstopper star Joe Locke was playing Tobias Ragg, the apprentice to Todd’s rival Pirelli.

And if the show ends up making a return to the UK’s West End, then casting directors should know that Jinkx is their girl.

Speaking about her career so far, Jinkx said her family always knew she would end up as a star of stage and screen.

“I came out of my mother queer and a performer, ask anyone in my family,” she said. “It’s in my baby book as one of my first sentences.”

She recently opened up about how playing cisgender woman Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors had been a “wonderful” and “affirming” experience for her as a trans woman.

Earlier this year, Jinkx revealed that she had undergone facial feminisation surgery and changed her off-stage name to Hera Hoffer.

She will be playing Mama Morton in Chicago from 27 June to 12 July. Tickets are available now.