It’s a lavish throwback inspired by 1940s supper clubs, all gilt furnishings and velvet drapes. It was painstakingly designed over five years by a team of architects. It used to be an adult cinema. All things considered, the Pigalle Club is the perfect venue for Immodesty Blaize, Britain’s answer to Dita von Teese, who performed at the club’s opening night to a rapturous crowd including Dita herself.
Now she’s bringing her acclaimed live act back to its spiritual home, with a series of performances at the Pigalle last week and a Valentine’s Day special on Wednesday.
Immodesty Blaize has been described, with not a little hyperbole, as “the Ava Gardner of showgirls” (by Time Out) with “nuclear levels of sex appeal” (by The Times). She’s widely acknowledged as the star of the British burlesque scene, and has been performing for over a decade. She was strapping herself into corsets, twirling her nipple tassels and generally keeping the spirit of burlesque alive at a time when audiences were more likely to look at her in perplexity than shower her with compliments. Back then, her name was Kelly Fletcher and she had a day job as an ad director. Nowadays, her CV includes performances for fashion houses Dior and Cartier, music videos, shows in Vegas and New York, and a now-infamous “radio striptease” on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour. And the once-languishing burlesque scene is now flourishing: take your pick from burlesque nights at London venues such as the Cobden Club, the Café Royal, the Play Room and the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.
So how did burlesque, once consigned to the cultural backwaters, stage such a triumphant return?
It seems it might be something to do with the pleasures of dressing up, especially to a generation reared on a musical diet of Britpop and drum and bass and a sartorial palette ranging from sportswear to identikit WAG-wear. Immodesty agrees, “This celebrity cult where we’re all encouraged to have fake tan and blonde hair – I’m the opposite of that, I dress to suit myself. For a long time there’s been a dress-up thing going on, with rockabilly and dress-up nights – I’ve been going to dress-up clubs for 16 years. The idea is that you can dress to your shape and wear whatever you feel like. I for one am completely devoted to the whole passionate, Italian, La Dolce Vita thing. Not since the disco kids and the New Romantics have we had the chance to dress up as a member of the audience.”
Burlesque used to be the province of fleamarket sleuths and fashionistas, but its surge in popularity is democratising the art form. Now anyone with burlesque stars in their eyes can head to Topshop to pick up a vintage dress before swing dancing anywhere from the Clapham Grand to Immodesty’s old stomping ground, the Whoopee Club. You can even learn to emulate the nipple tassel twirling skills Immodesty showed off in Goldfrapp’s ‘Train’ video.
Whoopee Club founders Tamara Tryer and Lara Clifton run lessons in burlesque art forms like magic and fan-dancing, in collaboration with Jo King from the London School of Striptease. Yes, there really is such an institution – but Immodesty maintains that burlesque is far from being stripping dressed up as art. “Burlesque is a form of erotic entertainment where women feel comfortable, which is why my audience is 60% female. I strip, I take my clothes off, but what I do is theatre – the costumes, the lights, the little trained dog who comes and picks up my things at the end of each act. Burlesque is about celebrating the individual. It’s all about having your own alter-ego, your own image; it’s about characters.”
Still, you probably wouldn’t take your granny to Immodesty’s shows, unless she happens to be partial to a bit of tasteful erotica. And many burlesque shows, including the Kitten Club at London Bridge, do describe themselves as “adult” in content. But burlesque, a very British art form, fits perfectly with the British approach to sex as something mysterious, mildly embarrassing and probably best laughed off. “Comedy is part of the burlesque genre,” Immodesty points out. “It’s not just striptease. I always incorporate a bit of a joke because I think it’s sexy to smile.”
Despite her disdain for celeb culture, Immodesty herself is set to help burlesque move further into the mainstream with a handful of TV appearances, including BBC2’s The Verdict, later this year. She admits she had to “tone down” her outfits for the latter, a serious court drama.
Onstage or off, on TV or on the radio, in watered-down form at the Clapham Grand or in high style at the Pigalle, burlesque offers a lifestyle as well as a night out with music, dance and theatre. The tongue-in-cheek atmosphere of it all masks a real passion for escapism, for glamour, for something out of the ordinary. And for Immodesty Blaize, no matter how unlikely her name or outré her outfits, it all comes from the heart: “Immodesty Blaize is part of me. That’s who I am”.
