A Couple of Beauties

Innuendo-laden crime caper, a star vehicle for Manchester-based drag queen Bunny Lewis

An innuendo-laden star vehicle for Manchester-based female impersonator Bunny Lewis, this fascinatingly slapdash quickie got lost among a raft of bigger-budget drag features like Dick Emery’s Ooh... You Are Awful (1972). Lewis plays nightclub barman Bernie Lewisham, who flees up north after witnessing an underworld hit on his boss. He's no actor, but once he drags up to ‘hide’ from the mob he’s on safer - and very entertaining - ground.

Despite limited resources, the film benefited from Lewis's showbiz contacts, with appearances from Pat Coombs and Bernard Manning, while Kenny Lynch wrote a song for the film’s hilariously lethargic girl group. Lewis previously appeared in the 1969 LWT documentary What’s a Girl Like You..., alongside other characters from the Manchester drag scene. Although A Couple of Beauties failed to bring him wider fame, it’s left us with a valuable snapshot of Mancunian nightlife in the early 1970s. Lewis continued to perform on the variety circuit and ran his own club for many years until his death in 2008.