Soho sleaze and striptease

(06-09-2016 00:54 )elgar1uk Wrote:  

(05-09-2016 07:19 )Kevin555 Wrote:  Hi,
I was about yesterday and on the drinking club with strippers at lunchtime in Goodge Street it is still open.
Only thing is it is a cocktail bar today called The Rev J W Simpson, Address is 32 Goodge Street, I have a strong suspicion the strippers have left the building.

This was Jacks Club and it did use to have strip shows all day, although not continuous shows. As you say, it was a drinking club with strippers rather than a strip club. The current bar is named after someone who once lived there and has been open since October 2012.

Hi Elgar,
You are correct it was Jack’s Bar. Hopefully you can help on the next part as well. Now I have done a little more research on this and found out the following, the girls at Jack’s were the same girls from the Soho rota who worked the various clubs in Soho. My friend’s uncle worked as a second hand car dealer in the Warren Street area and like the few remaining dealers in the 1970s, he was a regular. Across from Soho on the Tottenham Court Road side is Demark Street home of the music industry and the local for them was The Angel pub, however for confidential chats Jack’s was used as it was out of the way. Now from this I have also found out there was another unlicensed drinking den just of Old Compton Street, also attended by the music world and unusually for the location it was on the first floor of the building. The issue which made it strange is it had been fitted out as a bar but with the fitting from another bar, renovated wood panelling, significance was the wood panelling originated from the auction of one of the old liners which was being scrapped, I asked my friend for more details and he thought towards the end of Old Compton Street, place stayed open for around 4 years and had a natural closing. Like Jack’s it had strippers, but occasional, on Friday’s lunch and evening and Saturday evening. Now at this place the customers seemed to have been, Soho types, music people, and the authorities, not the police, but some of the Whitehall types who occupied Murrays and Eve’s in the days of Helen O’Brien. Anyway Elgar or anyone else for that matter any information would be welcomed.
In addition to this there is another location at the back of Great Portland Street, this like Jack’s was supplied with Soho strippers and hostesses however the clientele, were mainly from the GPS rag trade, in those days GPS and the surrounding area had a lot of fashion trade outlets e.g. Simon Jeffrey the most well-known one, and in what is Nicolas Off License today in the 1970s one of the staff was Baron De Spoon, a Belgium aristocrat on hard times who also worked part time as a journalist.
Back to both Soho and Jack’s, my friend was saying one of the girls had an extended career, she must have been in her 20s when she began and ended in her 50s , he last saw her around the late 1990s so in theory she began her career in the late 1960s. Question is she was around 5’6” black hair done up, always wore red lipstick and had a nice smile, my friend hopes she is doing well but any information like a name would be welcomed.

(05-09-2016 08:48 )Kevin555 Wrote:  The area looks like it is about to be developed and no doubt we well have a fresh selection of expensive coffee shops when completed

Plans for the redevelopment of Walker's Court included the restoration of the Boulevard Theatre, which in 1996 became the Boulevard Strip Club. I assume this is still going ahead. Pretty much the whole of Walker's Court is going to be rebuilt, plus 27 Peter Street and 8-10 Brewer Street.

(06-09-2016 16:41 )Kevin555 Wrote:  Question is she was around 5’6” black hair done up, always wore red lipstick and had a nice smile, my friend hopes she is doing well but any information like a name would be welcomed.

I think this must be Angela. She worked at the Dolls House for a long time. The last Soho club she worked at was the Sunset Strip.

(07-09-2016 10:19 )southlondonphil Wrote:  

(05-09-2016 08:48 )Kevin555 Wrote:  The area looks like it is about to be developed and no doubt we well have a fresh selection of expensive coffee shops when completed

Plans for the redevelopment of Walker's Court included the restoration of the Boulevard Theatre, which in 1996 became the Boulevard Strip Club. I assume this is still going ahead. Pretty much the whole of Walker's Court is going to be rebuilt, plus 27 Peter Street and 8-10 Brewer Street.

Hi Phil,
Thanks for that, will be interesting what the area will be like when completed. I will not be surprised if it is a mixture of up-market eateries, coffee shops etc. Also the Boulevard Theatre I wonder what they will show and if it is strippers will it in effect be a sanitised parody of the old days .

(07-09-2016 13:20 )elgar1uk Wrote:  

(06-09-2016 16:41 )Kevin555 Wrote:  Question is she was around 5’6” black hair done up, always wore red lipstick and had a nice smile, my friend hopes she is doing well but any information like a name would be welcomed.

I think this must be Angela. She worked at the Dolls House for a long time. The last Soho club she worked at was the Sunset Strip.

Thanks for that Elgar, spoke to my friend and he says the name is familiar to him, so we can assume it is her, he was saying it would be nice if she is living in comfort after the sterling service she put in.

With all this talk about the early strip clubs, I thought I’d add that the Compton Cinema, the first ever porn cinema in this country, opened in Soho around the same time. There must have been around 40 porn cinemas in Soho at one time and yet today there are none.

(03-09-2016 17:56 )Kevin555 Wrote:  speaking to some of the guys this began in the 1970s, when you paid to go into one strip club, which had the frontage and little else only to be directed to another club where you had to pay again. From there the excessive charges built up as did the occasional violence on a customer who would not pay up.

I didn't experience this misfortune myself, but in the 1960s there were some places which looked like strip clubs, but were just frontage. Customers were taken to another address, but didn't have to pay twice, as it wasn't a scam. The frontage club was effectively acting as a 'box office' for one of the real clubs.

(08-09-2016 11:56 )elgar1uk Wrote:  

(03-09-2016 17:56 )Kevin555 Wrote:  speaking to some of the guys this began in the 1970s, when you paid to go into one strip club, which had the frontage and little else only to be directed to another club where you had to pay again. From there the excessive charges built up as did the occasional violence on a customer who would not pay up.

I didn't experience this misfortune myself, but in the 1960s there were some places which looked like strip clubs, but were just frontage. Customers were taken to another address, but didn't have to pay twice, as it wasn't a scam. The frontage club was effectively acting as a 'box office' for one of the real clubs.

Hi Elgar, the "Box office" I think depended on who was there on a particular evening, and whether the felt they could get away with it.
That was one of the scams from the 1970s

(08-09-2016 10:02 )shaun blue Wrote:  With all this talk about the early strip clubs, I thought I’d add that the Compton Cinema, the first ever porn cinema in this country, opened in Soho around the same time. There must have been around 40 porn cinemas in Soho at one time and yet today there are none.

Today London has not one porn cinema left, Abcat, Oscars , Fantasy all gone and when 487 opened in Deptford it lasted around 18 months, Soho did have some good cinemas back in the day

(07-09-2016 10:19 )southlondonphil Wrote:  Pretty much the whole of Walker's Court is going to be rebuilt, plus 27 Peter Street and 8-10 Brewer Street.

To add to the list, 4 and 6 Brewer Street are also part of this redevelopment. The 8-10 Brewer Street address is the former Madame Jojo's, a Soho institution dating back to the 1940s. This club is going to be recreated in the redevelopment, although whether in the same premises I don't know.