...Billy Bragg

ALEC’S VERDICT: “A successful male stripper must be willing to work late nights and perform in front of large audiences and Trotskyite troubadour Billy has had decades of experience doing both. The rabble-rousing New England fave cut his teeth playing the raucous London punk circuit in the ‘80s, so he should certainly be able to handle thirty pissed-up nail technicians shrieking at him to get his Leftie cock out.

That said, Bragg is famous for his outspoken political views, and the male strip show is hardly the right arena for serious governmental discourse. At my gigs, the doors are open to ladies of any political leaning - be they Labour, Tory or Lib Dem - and indeed, a few of the more boisterous female regulars at the Meadows sport extremist far-right tattoos across their knuckles and necks. If Billy were to spot these inflammatory markings whilst he was working the pole, the Stalinist singersongwriter would no doubt stop mid-dance, and insist the DJ cut the music so he could deliver a hard-hitting anti-fascist diatribe, which would surely dampen the erotic mood no end.

What’s more, as a fervent socialist, Billy could well take issue with the way finances are handled in the male striptease world. My lads are paid not so much by cash-inhand as cashin-thong. And at my insistence, there’s not a word to the taxman. As such, it would presumably conflict with Bragg’s egalitarian principles if the Leninist lyricist was prancing off stage every night in a G-string full of black-market fivers.

However, if Billy was willing to put his bleeding heart morals aside for a moment, I might well consider taking the Bard of Barking onto my books.”

Alec’s Full Monty Rating: 4/10