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Boys will be girls and the girls will have fun
By Olivia Walmsley, London Lite 20.04.07
Flash fash pack: the crowd at Circus Circus are not quite like the bunch you might find at the pub on a Friday night
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It's Friday night and I'm trying to get into a club in Soho - but for once I'm not surrounded by the usual postwork, beered-up pub crowd. I am lurking outside the Soho Revue Bar, formerly the infamous Sixties strip club Raymond's Revue Bar, where the throng is rather different.
The queue bristles with multicoloured mohicans, chalky teenage faces are half-hidden by asymmetric bobs in inky-black or peroxide, while men with lightning streaking across their faces and sequinned lips suck languidly on their Marlboros as they wait to get the go-ahead from the bouncers.
I realise I am horribly underdressed in my paint-spattered grey T-shirt and jeans.
We are all waiting to get into Circus Circus, a weekly club night which, on this particular Friday, is hosting a rock 'n' roll special. It's achingly fashionable. Kelly Osbourne, guest DJ for the night, trips into the lobby clad in a prom dress and Louboutins and handpicks her mates from the crowd.
The jazz-singer Tyler James, who, as I recall used to go out with Amy Winehouse and Martine McCutcheon, sails straight to the front of the queue.
As Tyler is clutching the hand of a blond boy, I have my doubts about the romances with Martine and Amy.
A bottle of champagne later, I decide I adore the Soho Revue Bar. It has just the right mixture of glamour and sleaze.
Although the place has been tarted up since its strip-club days, they've kept the stage, the poles and the seedy lamplit tables surrounding the dancefloor, which are perfect for people-watching. And there's a lot to watch.
On my right, an oiled-up, almost naked man works one dance pole in an impressively gymnastic manner, while a beautiful-woman does her thing at the other one. On the usual Circus Circus nights there are even more performers - fire eaters, jugglers, aerialists, burlesque dancers - so it's definitely worth getting there early to bag a table.
The music is fun, mainstream pop. There's none of the ear-bleedingly edgy electro favoured by some other London clubs, and alongside the trannies and celebs, there are plenty of us ordinary punters.
I corner the host and promoter, drag queen Jodie Harsh. With his impressive pout and peroxide hair he looks like Scarlett Johansson after an explosion at the make-up counter.
"We're bringing an East End crowd to the West End - East End cool with West End glamour," explains Jodie. "If you want to get in, throw a look. Be a peacock!" I squirm uncomfortably in my plain old T-shirt.
My brother is impressed by the bevy of beautiful, glamorous girls, dancing and draping themselves around the bar. There are a few other straight men here but to his glee, there's not a lot of competition for the girls' attention.
For the rubberneckers, like me, there is a different celebrity DJ every week. Peaches Geldof has had a go, as has Amy Winehouse, Alexander McQueen, Boy George, The Queens of Noize and Meg Mathews. "All my friends, basically," says Jodie, grandly.
Soon I make friends with a man with an impressive false moustache. Fake eyelashes, glued on carefully, one at a time, he informs me. Two sweaty hours of the Rolling Stones, Missy Elliot, Peaches and the Sex Pistols pass and at 3am I find myself impersonating a hoovering Freddie Mercury to I Want To Break Free, before deciding I'd better head home before I do anything really embarrassing.
But I'll be back next time, throwing a look... complete with false 'tache.
