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Businessmen visiting London 10 years ago and looking for
some adult entertainment in this supposedly sophisticated city were faced
with the not very edifying choice between the Raymond's Revuebar glitzy
simulated gymnastics and a series of small Soho based places that were
either tacky , sleazy , or a pure rip off { and normally a combination
of all 3 }. The position has changed dramatically in the last few years
with the emergence of a number of US style table dancing places both increasing
the total number of venues and forcing the older places to improve standards.
The strip scene in London is positively booming at the moment with several
chains of clubs actively looking for new outlets and many of the old established
places investing in new décor and facilities.
Actually even 20 years or more ago businessmen in the financial
sector city of London were well aware of a particularly British institution
, the strip pub , where reasonably priced draft beer could be consumed
while watching a full strip show but for various reasons this remained
a secret known only to selected Londoners. The strip pub still exists
centred on the area to the east of Liverpool St station and in this introduction
to the London scene I will deal with them separately.
There is a first class web site { www.trashcity.org undressed
to kill section} which deals with the London scene and has the details
of addresses, maps, and links to all the relevant web sites. Anybody visiting
London would be well advised to spend an hour or so browsing this site
which is kept up to date even though the man that runs it now actually
lives in Arizona ! As a consequence of this I don't propose to waste space
on detailed addresses/web sites/opening times as all of this is available
in great depth on that site.
There remain a few differences with the US scene due to
local circumstances. For a start virtually every place in London offers
both full nude dancing and alcohol which as I understand it is rare in
the US. Secondly almost all UK places are to be found in urban high streets
and do not have much in the way of car parking. As a result of this London
places are generally much smaller than some of the monster places that
can be found in the US mainly due to the very high land prices. In London
{especially central London} the clubs are tightly regulated and all operate
a strict no touching policy so that lap dances of the type I have had
in the US do not routinely happen. Licensing is the responsibility of
local government and in London at present this is dominated by the left
wing PC brigade who are normally hostile to nude entertainment. However
the UK is now subject to a lot of EU inspired laws and as a result the
clubs can usually overturn council objections in court if determined enough.
A final point is that London is a very cosmopolitan city and as a result
there are a very high proportion of non British girls working the clubs.
I would categorise the places in scene in London into 4
groups , strip pubs, table dancing clubs, Soho, and private parties. I
will deal with each of these separately,
The English pub is a fine old institution and
the frankly brilliant idea of combining a pint of frothing ale with nude
girls first hit London in the 1970s. The centre of strip pubs in London
was and has remained in Shoreditch where there are a number of places
within a couple of minutes walk of each other. The East End of London
has a villainous image { it was the centre for operations for the Kray
twins in the 60s, the nearest Britain has ever got to Al Capone style
gangsters} but actually the custom in these places comes mainly from besuited
city of London types. In the old days the girls were paid to do a topless
show and then went amongst the audience looking for tips prior to doing
a full strip , the tips normally being coins { the smallest note in the
UK being £5 ie $7 or $8 } it is easiest collected in a pint glass
or jug. " Jugging " as everybody calls it still operates but
now several of the places also offer table dancing and charge the girls
to work there. The most famous strip pub in London is called Browns, it
is a city institution and has décor, fittings, and a quality of
girls to equal most of the West End venues. The beer at Browns is at normal
pub prices and there is no door charge though a minimum contribution to
the girl of £1 per spot is strictly enforced. Browns often has well
over 100 customers in the evenings and so the " jug " here can
be very lucrative for the girls. Table dances are £10, it's open
from 1 pm until late and has 3 shifts of 6 to 10 girls each. Browns is
on the junction of Shoreditch High St and Hackney Rd and within a couple
of minutes walk are 4 further strip pubs. The Axe, Spreadeagle, and Rainbow
Sports Bar are all basically downmarket versions of Browns , the best
of the rest by far in my opinion is the White Horse which is the last
pure old fashioned strip pub in the area , it does not do table dancing
nor charge house fees nor charge on the door. It does though have high
quality girls on the stage, sells good beer at reasonable prices, and
has retained the atmosphere of a conventional pub. Use it before it goes
is my advice.
The main rival to Browns for the city trade is a pub previously
known as the Arabian Arms which is now called Metropolis and was actually
the first place in London to introduce table dancing in the early 1990s.
It is now really more of a rival to the West End venues with high class
décor on 3 floors, shifts of 30 girls on at once, door charges,
and high house fees. There is however still a show stage and the girls
still collect a jug before stripping on it.
The Hackney strip pubs now have to pay a West End style
" sex encounter " license although many of them had been operating
quite happily for 30 years or more without one. The borough is controlled
by the left wing PC brigade and consequently normally opposes the opening
of any new venue though when challenged in court they normally lose.
There are strip pubs spread throughout London and in most
boroughs this type of licensing has not yet been introduced. The next
greatest concentration of pubs is near Heathrow Airport where Spearmint
{see below} has also opened 2 clubs. The best known venue in this area
is probably the Woolpack in Hayes which also has it's own table dance
club attached to the back called Inhibitions. There are a number of other
well established places including the Victoria at Hayes, the Flags at
Chalvey, and the Robert Peel at Kingston.
Students of the bizarre might enjoy a visit to the Flying
Scotsman which is near Kings Cross railway station, one of the worst areas
in London. The Scot has girls on all day but is best described as earthy.
It only stopped having sawdust on the floor a few months ago, has an indescribable
gents toilet reportedly the inspiration for the one in
the film " Trainspotting ", and a clientele that often give
you the opportunity to observe the government's " care in the community
" for the mentally ill at first hand ! The girls change on the stairs
{ 2 steps each ! } and play their own records though they tell me it can
be a decent earner.
In pubs where table dancing occurs there are normally house
fees in the £20 to £40 range { Metropolis charges rather more},
straight strip pubs do not normally charge anything and some of the outer
London ones still pay a house fee.
The first US style table dancing club was opened
by For your eyes only { known as FYEO} in an area of London called Park
Royal { about halfway between the centre and Heathrow } in 1995. It was
a great success and initially pulled a lot of customers from Central London.
FYEO then took over the failed Berkley Playhouse in Mayfair in 1999 and
has also expanded into the provinces with clubs in places like Bournemouth
and Newcastle. The chain is owned by a publicly quoted pub group called
SFI Plc and was up for sale last year but could find no buyers allegedly
because the financial institutions were reluctant to get involved in this
type of business.
Shortly after FYEO set up well known nightclub owner Peter
Stringfellow converted his flagship Stringfellow's in St Martin's lane
from it's previous format to a strip joint called the Cabaret of Angels.
This is now a pure table dancing place and was an immediate success although
until very recently it was topless only. Stringfellow is a high profile
person and the club is now the sort of place local celebrities plus visiting
superstars like Jack Nicholson and Leonardo de Caprio can be seen.
Stringfellow's big rival at the top end of the West End
market is Spearmint Rhino who opened their largest UK club in 2000 nearby
at Tottenham Court Rd. This is currently probably the biggest and most
successful place in the UK and reportedly Spearmint's most profitable
club worldwide. On busy nights they have up to 300 girls on a shift. In
response to the new competition Stringfellow's went full nude in 2002
despite local council opposition. Stringfellow's and Spearmint have engaged
in a war of words for the past few months and stories of illegal activity
in Spearmint doubtless contributed to it having it's license application
turned down by the local council in March 2002. Spearmint are confident
of winning on appeal and have opened several further UK clubs including
2 in the Heathrow area of West London with others planned for London in
the next few months.
Another chain to emerge in the last 2 or 3 years is Secrets
originally set up by ex Marmalade drummer Alan Whitehead. They now have
4 clubs in London {in the central area but not in the West End} with plans
to open a 5th in the old Cherokee premises near the Tower of London by
September. In addition single clubs like Sophisticats, Expose', Images,
and Venus have opened in the past 2 years and there are plans for several
more including a replica of the Soprano's Bada Bing club in Holborn.
These upscale clubs all charge £10 to £20 on
the door, have very expensive drinks , charge the girls anything up £90
a shift , and many also take a commission on the tipping dollars they
sell. Table dances are normally full nude starting at £20. They
have though succeeded in changing the image of stripping in the UK and
making it a much less furtive activity. Most of the larger ones are very
busy at present and highly profitable though the downturn in business
travel since September 11th must have had some impact on those relying
mainly on visitors.
As mentioned above while many new clubs have opened a few
have also failed, generally speaking the failures have either avoided
full nudity { Berkley }, had a confused product offer { Traders}, or quickly
hit problems with the authorities { Cherokee}. Cherokee and the Berkley
both raised money on the UK stockmarket and their rapid dot com style
demise has resulted in a reluctance in the financial community to invest
in an activity they fully utilise when they are entertaining. The West
End market may be getting close to saturation once the currently planned
clubs open but London is a very large city and there must still be many
opportunities for clubs in the suburbs.
Most British people automatically think of Soho
if the sex industry in the UK is mentioned but the area has been in relative
decline for a number of years. This is mainly because Westminster council
decided to clean the place up 10 or more years ago and came up with the
concept of a council regulated sex encounter license. The aim of this
was to reduce the number of strip clubs/massage parlours/porno book shops
and so the council initially only issued 6 licenses expecting all the
others to close down.
In fact this did not happen and the non licensed places
mutated into a series of scams/rip offs/business fronts designed to avoid
or at least confuse the law. There are now as many places in Soho as before
but 90% of them are pure rip offs aimed at the unwary tourist. Apart from
the places mentioned below I would avoid the place like the plague both
as a customer and as a dancer.
The best known place in Soho remains Raymond's Revuebar
{ though Paul Raymond is no longer involved}, it's a glossy, fast, well
choreographed show and well worth a visit if you have not been before.
There are 3 smaller strip clubs the Sunset Strip, the Astral, and the
Boulevard which are not rip offs and a whole mass of " Bed shows
" and the like which are.
There is also the Windmill which was very famous for operating
throughout the blitz in WW2 and is now an upscale table dancing club.
I have it on good authority that this is just as successful as Spearmint
or Stringfellows but attracts an older, richer, but less high profile
clientele { more government than media}.
The strict enforcement of arbitrary rules on
touching etc has created a market for invite only private parties that
go a bit further. This can take the form of anything from the sort of
lap dancing normal in the US to live sex shows. There are however 2 organisations
that organise excellent regular monthly shows featuring full contact full
nude lap dancing Olympia Moments and Full Service that are worthy of mention.
These take place in good venues and are well organised and controlled.
Tyke 6/2002
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