The Great British Sewing Bee’s Luke has a drag persona called Selma Skreams
Luke’s drag persona is called Selma Skreams. (BBC/Love Productions)
The new series of The Great British Sewing Bee brought with it a new cast of eclectic and interesting characters, including drag performer Luke, aka Selma Skreams.
For those who don’t know, The Great British Sewing Bee is a spin-off of the format of The Great British Bake Off.
The new series began with 12 contestants, but Comfort Smithson, a self-employed designer and business manager from Somerset, and Neil Donoghue, a woodwork instructor from Leicester, left the competition in the first two weeks.
One of the remaining contestants is Luke, whose official bio shows they were taught to sew by their grandmother when they were just eight years old.
Luke works as a diversity, equality and inclusion director, but they also have another hobby besides sewing: drag. Hailing from Manchester, Luke’s drag persona is Selma Skreams.
The Great British Sewing Bee is presented by Kiell Smith-Bynoe, an actor best-known for his roles in Ghosts and Stath Lets Flats. The sewers are judged by Patrick Grant and Esme Young.
Over 10 weeks, the contestants must use their sewing skills to tackle a number of projects. Each episode features three challenges.
The pattern challenge is where judges give every contestant the same pattern to follow as accurately as possible, in the transformation challenge the sewers are given an identical existing garment to reinvent as something else, and the made-to-measure challenge asks each contestant to design and create their own garments to fit human models.
The Great British Sewing Bee airs on Tuesdays at 9pm on BBC One.
