Review > Theatre review: Stripped
Edinburgh at Festival time is notoriously full of middle-class floozies prancing around in their underwear for fun. But this is something different.
Writer and actress Hannah Chalmers has based her one-woman show on her real experiences of working in strip clubs. Chalmers has long, blonde hair, long legs and a perfect figure. But unlike the girls flattering the customers in the lap-dancing joints, Hannah has come here to tell the truth.
She gives us an exclusive backstage tour of the gentlemen's clubs - seen through the eyes of Baby, the newest girl on the block. The performer has a lot of fun with her story, impersonating a whole host of characters along the way. There's the straight-talking, hard-nosed manageress who shows the girls the ropes, the drunken Russian girl who tells Baby how to get the most out of customers, and the completely amoral posh bird who is out for anything she can get. There's also the seedy Scottish club owner, but the less said about him the better.
Like a lot of young girls, Baby thinks her sexiness and her ability to earn money is "empowering" and that life as a pole dancer will be "glamorous", but the reality is not as she imagined.
Her story exposes the real economics of the adult-entertainment world, as well as looking at the emotional effects upon those who work in it. There is nothing preachy or judgmental about it; she just tells it how it is.
Chalmers is cute, funny, smart and fun to watch, and her exposé of the lap-dancing racket makes more sense and rings truer than 1000 speeches from 1000 politicians. She has also created an entertaining and thought-provoking piece of theatre which deserves to be a success.
