A female friend asked me to a burlesque night she had organised. She honestly thought I would enjoy it. ‘Come and see naked women who aren’t being exploited,’ she said.
My friend said this because I sometimes hide from the world in the dark caves of Hackney, where ladies collect pounds in a pint glass and then turn around a pole with all the joie de vivre of a rusty weathervane in a light gale. On a wet weekday afternoon there are typically six or seven punters in these stews, who half-watch the show while drinking lager, munching crisps and thumbing through Loot or watching the cricket on the screen in the corner. I like these places. Flesh, alcohol, crisps, cricket, literature — the five pillars of civilised manhood, all accessible from one bar stool. Sometimes there’s even a working loo. It’s so much better than burlesque.
I shouldn’t have to see burlesque. Dita Von Teese, the American queen of the genre, has made it clear that it’s really just for women. Seventy per cent of her audience are women, apparently; the rest are gay men and boyfriends dragged along. So I ought to be able to leave this type of nudity to the people who understand it, but I am a stand-up comedian, so sadly it’s unavoidable in my line of work.
If I play a ‘variety’ night, there’s burlesque. At every taster show or chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe, there’s burlesque. I went to a fundraiser for International Women’s Day; there was burlesque. At every summer festival there’ll be a cabaret tent, and for cabaret you can pretty much read ‘burlesque’. Burlesque, it seems, has become the curry powder of light entertainment.
But my friend wanted company so I faced it again, with its camiknickers and sequins and women doing that ubiquitous ‘Aren’t I cheeky?’ face while taking an awfully long time to get undressed.
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