infomachine

The Jeepers Peepers Club

Well that was fun.  Lola and myself decided to go out on Friday to see an exciting little burlesque troupe we’ve been hearing an awful lot about called The Jeepers Peepers Club.  They’re based in Newcastle, but have been starting to run nights in York recently, at The Junction.

After getting there a little bit on the early side, we had a couple of drinks while listening to the cheesecake rock n roll being played, and admired the transformation of The Junction into somewhat of a boudoir: table cloths, decorations, even a curtain around the stage.

At 9, the curtain opened as Sweetie Amour, dressed as a french maid, opened the proceedings.  After hyping the crowd for a bit, a job which she did brilliantly all evening, not once breaking from the french accent, she introduced Penny Whipworth, who performed an amusing skeleton themed striptease.  Penny’s act was pretty good, with regular “bone cracks” throughout, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by the routine.

The next act, however, completely blew me away.  Ava Loveless, who was apparently the new girl to the troupe, performed her Barbarella-esque “Saturn Rings” act, which consisted of her doing a striptease whilst hula hooping.  The climax was Ava managing to continue hula hooping whilst taking off her bra.  My own view is that this was the best thing I had ever seen, and it sounded like the audience agreed with me.

After a half hour break of more music, we were treated to Anna Fur Laxis‘ fish-based first act of the evening.  Managing to get off a sequined red dress, an Arabian princess outfit, and underwear in only a few minutes with the aid of some strategically placed hooks, Anna looks like she stepped directly out of a US pin-up poster.  That, combined with the suffocation based dance routine (to “Breathless”), she could easily be on stage with any of the top modern burlesque performers, so it’s a real pleasure to see her somewhere as small as The Junction.

Thankfully there’s more to come.  As soon as Anna’s finished, Chelsea Bangs comes on for her one performance of the evening, a Geisha-themed routine involving various oriental costumes, a parasol filled with rose petals, papers fans and throwing fortune cookies into the crowd.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite get the crowd behind her, as dazed as they were after Anna Fur Laxis’ performance, and as she only had the one performance of the evening it felt like she was a little bit wasted.

Certainly not wasted was Ava Loveless, who came on next with a brilliant “Hit The Road, Jack” routine based around her taking her clothes off to pack them in her suitcase.  A very simple routine, with the delicate twist at the end of her being covered in blood, having clearly murdered a man “what done her wrong”.  It probably requires a little bit of polish to get it as good as the Saturn Rings routine, but she’s hot enough to make up for it.

After the next break, we had another routine from Penny Whipworth.  Although she’s good, I was a little surprised that Penny had been chosen to be the second-to-last act on, given the comparative strength of Chelsea Bangs and Ava Loveless.  Her sweet-based routine, starting with an ice-cream inspired parasol and ending with pasties shaped like liquorice allsorts, was good, but I can’t see it as a second-to-last routine of the night.

Which certainly can’t be said for Anna Fur Laxis’ closing routine of the night.  She came on stage dressed as a member of the US Air Force, trapped behind enemy lines, and proceeded to strip down to her nipple tassles, at which point she commenced some tassle twirling that brought the house down: twirling both left, then both right, then both circling out, then both circling in.  The crowd was obviously aware of how difficult this is, as they were screaming at the top of their lungs.

After the obligatory final bow from all concerned, we had a little bit of a dance and headed off home.  It was a bit of a shame that the crowd was nowhere near as big as it should have been, but, even so, the Jeepers Peepers girls put on an excellent show, and a good night certainly appeared to be had by all.  So I hope to see you all there at the next one.