Alternative Nightlife

For the best in burlesque every week, click here for Social Club listings.

It's showtime! (image © Rob Greig)

A is for…
Adult entertainment Burlesque is strictly for grown-ups. Put simply, it’s a striptease to music with props. Remember, though, that the genre originated in the days of vaudeville and music halls – it’s all about the wink and the tease.

B is for…
Broken Hearts are Amber and Nisha, both 24-year-old Londoners, who dress as tiny showgirls and DJ at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and The Rakehell’s Revels. Their 1950s polka dot record boxes are chock-full of period-influenced swing and rock ’n’ roll, and the girls use a red telephone handset rather than headphones because it doesn’t mess up their hair. ‘I Hate My Evil Friend’ is their debut record (influenced by Phil Spector and 1960s girl groups, produced by Nathan J Whitey); it’s out on Mute’s Irregular imprint this summer
(www.myspace.com/2brokenhearts).
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Bearlesque Think burlesque and the safe money says that hairy gay blokes performing a Viking Pole Dance doesn’t spring immediately to mind. It should, though, because this burly, bristly burlesque troupe are hot, hot, hot. See them every Thursday at VauxhallVille Cabaret at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club Home to Whoopee’s Hip Hip and Tournament of Tease, and no stranger to bizarre burlesque turns on its broken love heart-lit stage.

C is for…
Carbon Zero Burlesque is going eco-friendly. Supper club Bonobo Presents’s next event at the Café Royal’s Grill Room features the Bees Knees on May 17 and will be ‘carbon zero’. Money from each ticket will go towards offsetting the eleven tonnes they estimate the event will cause.

Classes The Burlesque Factory starts on May 9 (www.burlesquefactory.com); Jo King’s School of Burlesque hosts the drop-in Razzle Dazzle every Thursday at the Dance Attic, and Tease ’n’ Twirl, a one-day workshop, on May 20 at their Ballards Lane studio (www.londonschoolofstriptease.co.uk).

Classic routines Famous and regularly used performances include the fan-dance [see Amber Topaz, above left, and Sally Rand, above], wearing a costume of balloons and the reverse striptease.

D is for…
Dita Von Teese The ex-Mrs Marilyn Manson caused a near riot at her London shows last October. Didn’t see it? Blow $85 and console yourself with a pair of her used nylon stockings, available from her website (www.dita.net).

E is for…
Exotic World Museum That’s right – burlesque has a museum. But you have to go to Las Vegas to see it (www.exoticworldusa.org).

F is for…
Fancy Chance The self-proclaimed ‘burlesque terrorist’ Ms Chance dominates the comic burlesque scene with performances about the consequences of eating magic mushrooms and being jilted at the altar. She will be performing the finale at the V&A’s Friday Late Surrealist Ball on May 25. ‘Think seafood and dialtones,’ she suggests.

Fetish Unsuprisingly, burlesque features big on the fetish scenes. Look out for the Pearl Necklace, Torture Garden’s Burlesque Ball and part of the London Fetish Weekend, on May 20 (www.torturegarden.com).

G is for…
Grotesque burlesque Otherwise known as carnivalesque, as invented by the high-end artist, Marisa Carnesky. Her edgy, political performances include one in which she plays Eve, eats an apple and strips while it’s squashed in her mouth. For her famous VE Day show she pulled a Union Jack out of her vagina.

Gwendoline Lamour Think Britain can’t do pin-up glamour? A few slack-jawed moments watching Miss Lamour’s ‘Crystal Shoe’ performance might just change your mind. She shares the knowledge, running the School of G’lamour (www.gwendolinelamour.com).

H is for…
History As in ‘know your’. Influential names to drop include: Lydia Thompson and her blondes – in 1860s New York, this British troupe became the city’s biggest Broadway sensation, and also shared stage space with a baby hippo; Sally Rand who made the ostrich feather fan dance famous in 1933; and Gypsy Rose Lee, one the biggest stars at NYC’s 1940s seedy burlesque den, Minksy’s, and frequently arrested as a result, Lee made the tease casual and even more saucy as a result.

I is for…
Immodesty Blaize As seen recently on ‘Faking It’, Britain’s queen of burlesque commands big bucks on the corporate circuit. Famous for her giant rocking horse prop and fabulous, Liberace-like costumes, you’ll have to wait until October for the next series of public dates.

J is for…
Jokes Comedy. Spoofs. Pastiche. Slapstick. It’s what burlesque is all about.

Julie Atlas Muz At last November’s Immodesty Tease, Muz stood in the middle of the stage, which was dark save for the harsh spotlight, tied from neck to toe in bondage cords. She wriggled and seemingly dislocated joints to the sounds of ‘You Don’t Own Me’ before tearing off her blindfold and sticking her middle finger up. Jaded, cheap thrills burlesque? Miss Muz is going to have you for breakfast (www.julieatlasmuz.com).

K is for…
Koko This opulent, multi-tiered music hall is where Dita Von Teese did her only official public performance last year. (www.koko.uk.com). See also Royal Crown Revue.

L is for…
London Burlesque Festival Las Vegas has Miss Exotic World, NYC has the New York Burlesque Festival, now London has a burlesque festival to call its own, thanks to Chaz Royal. Running from May 9-12, with showcases at Madame JoJo’s, the Soho Revue Bar, Neighbourhood and Bush Hall (www.londonburlesquefest.com).

M is for…
Ministry of Burlesque Started in Glasgow, this is an online burlesque collective without equal (www.ministryofburlesque.com).
Male Tournament of Tease The final burlesque frontier is men doing burlesque for women, something this talent show is hoping to rectify at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club on May 30 and June 27, with the grand final on July 19. To enter: www.thewhoopeeclub.com.

N is for…
Nymphaeum Burlesque in the water. Inspired by Busby Berkeley’s 1930s-’40s mega-aqua musicals, the Whoopee Club’s ode to synchronised swimming wowed sold-out crowds last November at the Porchester Baths, Bayswater. Expect the show to move to outdoor lidos this summer.

O is for…
Oh My God I Miss You! This monthly burlesque club at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club flips between hellfire and damnation (The Hellfire Club) and a circus theme (Get In The Ring). The next date is May 25.

P is for…
Pasties Those things the tassels hang off? They’re called nipple pasties.

Props Fans, stockings, boas, gloves and hats. Also giant bubbles, oyster shells, martini glasses, birdcages and underwear covered with balloons.

Q is for…
Queerlesque Burlesque with a queer twist. Specifically, Killpussy’s ‘It’s My Birthday Slut Suit’ performance, as seen this Saturday at Club Wotever at The Master’s Club in Soho.

R is for…
Royal Crown Revue Promising ‘a sensational summit meeting of swing and burlesque’ on May 10, the Ministry of Burlesque co-presents this Vegas-sleaze event at Koko with turns from Kittie Klaw, Venus Envy and the Hurly Burly Girlys.

S is for…
Shimmy One of the most famous burlesque moves. Throw your shoulders back and shake what God gave you.

Soho Revue Bar Once an erotic centre of the world, always an erotic centre of the world. Pole-dancing clowns, international drag queens and burlesque beauties by the barrel-load.

T is for…
Tassels Which famously swing around during a performance’s finale, and sometimes even in opposite directions at once. £14.99 a pair from www.nippletassels.co.uk

U is for…
Underwear As in, a girl’s gotta have great… Frilly French knickers are more popular with performers than dental-floss G-strings, and vintage lace beats modern fibres hands down. See www.opheliafancy.com

V is for…
Volupté A pretty Holborn basement supper club, home to the fortnightly Afternoon Tease, which combines tea, cakes and burlesque performances and the weekly Burlesque is Booming!

W is for…
The Whoopee Club There are numerous strings to the Whoopee Club’s (www.thewhoopeeclub.com) bow: agency for several hundred burlesque, circus, cabaret and ‘curiosity’ performers; burlesque try-out nights such as The Tournament of Tease (see also Male Tournament of Tease); ‘anarchic cabaret’ events like Hip Hip this Friday at the Cobden Club and May 25 at BGWMC; and themed opulent mega-productions every few months (see Nymphaeum).

X is for…
X-Rated Something burlesque isn’t, as the underwear and nipple tassels stay on. Unless, of course, there’s been a wardrobe malfunction.

Y is for…
Yelling Whistling is fine, clapping expected… but yelling ‘Get your kit off’? We think not.

Z is for…
Ziegfeld Follies A series of Broadway shows ran which from 1907-1931 and ‘celebrated the live female form as art’. Read: hundreds of pretty and elaborately-dressed chorus girls doing syncronised high-kicks.

For the best in burlesque every week, click here for Social Club listings.