AS THE CLOCK strikes 1 pm, the drag queen mounts a table, flashing us glimpses of arse as they gyrate to Macy Gray’s ‘Sexual revolution’ in thigh-high lime-green stilettos and a blue bodycon dress. At their feet are six white-haired pensioners, who gaze up at the non-binary queen’s hot-pink beard and neon makeup with expressions of quasi-religious rapture. At the song’s climax, the queen strips down to a pink G-string and whips out a bottle of sunscreen. The table’s occupants are invited to rub cream onto the queen’s hairy stomach and legs – a camp restaging of strip-club cheesecake that prompts the room to erupt in whoops and cheers.

After the song fades out, the action moves to the dance floor, where twinks in silver hotpants show off their twerking, jostling for space in a sea of bejewelled bodies. Up on stage, a drag king DJ commands the decks, flirting with the crowd from beneath a lustrous moustache. When the set ends, it’s time for a conga line. The crowd re-forms into an undulating snake, a many-headed creature that thrice circles the room before heading outside into the afternoon. There, in the dusty carpark, the air fills with the opening notes of disco classic ‘I love the nightlife’, and the conga line reassembles itself as a tightly choreographed flash mob. Under a harsh 3 pm sun, the mob shakes its collective booty, the dancing figures casting long shadows onto the hard-packed earth.