The {so far} only magazine about the UK industry Pole Position has been refinanced and a 3rd printed edition finally appeared during April. Apparently there is to be a 6 part documentary about the magazine on terrestrial TV starting in May and the magazine is also organising a sponsored national exotic dancer of the year competition ” Miss Pole Position 2003 ” which will be featured in the programme. Watch this space.
The Twickenham club formerly to be called Heaven seems to have been renamed the Piano Lounge and opened late in the month {web sitewww.wotawally.com , obviously a sense of humour !} after a delay caused by the council insisting on cameras inside. The club is busily recruiting girls and is by all accounts quite fussy. Although it´s brand new they are charging house fees from day 1 and with a capacity of only 90 they want up to 20 girls on at once. This strikes me as being typical of the distorted way high house fees seem to make clubs want to operate, whether a girl can make any money in these circumstances is just conjecture.
News of a new agency called Stiletto Girls { see www.stilettogirls.co.uk but not much on it yet !} reached me this month specialising in supplying clubs with lap dancers and also girls for corporate type bashes. There are stories about yet another TV series about them appearing on Channel 4 {factual TV programmes about stripping seem very popular at present on C4 and C5} in the next couple of months.
While the word on the street remains that the clubs are quiet the pub scene in London still seems to be expanding. In Vauxhall a new venue called the Cactus Bar has opened in Parry Street {apparently it has already managed the difficult feat of being downmarket of even the venerable Queen Anne !} and the Dewana Social club in Stratford is apparently celebrating a move away from Rainbow by introducing striptease 7 nights a week.
Rumour has it that long established East End club Metropolis was heavily fined for indecency following the usual undercover Police investigation uncovering the use of water pistols in their shower area! In the Riverside theatre in Hammersmith however a Spanish troupe are performing a play called XXX {based on a Marquis De Sade book} which reportedly involves cast members having oral sex with the audience apparently with prior authority approval. Still ones art I suppose !
Despite the clubs still being quiet most are still actively recruiting girls in places like The Stage magazine presumably to keep their house fee income up. The large number of clubs now open and their policy of putting as many girls as possible on at once has created a very large market for dancers in London. Unlike the free market theory though this has not yet translated in any improvement in terms and conditions.
Talking of Rainbow London´s largest striptease agency seems to be going through a sticky patch at the moment with more venues lost, the long moribund web site now totally down, and reports of confusion in the bookings. There are rumours that owner Mervyn wants to sell the Sports Bar and I do wonder how long the agency side would last if this happened.
News reached me this month that the ex Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway visited a lap dance club in Scotland just after Christmas as research for an article he was writing. He was heard to comment that he did not object to the clubs on moral grounds but would not be going back “because it was not sexy enough ” !
The GMB union got involved in it´s first ever industrial dispute in the striptease industry with the Docklands club Majingo´s. It has all been settled amicably without the need for strikes or pickets !
Places outside London still seem to be opening at a steady rate. In my home town of Doncaster news that the former Baccus nightclub and wine bar is to be converted into a table dancing club opening in the summer. In Aylesbury regular shows on the last Monday of the month have started at M´n´A´s basement bar in Kingsbury Square. Not everyone is happy about this growth mind you, at the University of East Anglia the students union has banned it´s own student magazine called Concrete {interesting title, probably some comment on the brains present !} from sale in the Union building for carrying an advert for the Devil´s Advocate lap dancing club in Norwich.
Tyke
Author: Saxon
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