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It is mid 1830’s, London.

A time when women are the property of their fathers or husbands and if a girl has neither, ownership passes to the next closest male family member.

We of the fairer sex cannot vote, inherit property outside of jewelry, clothing or furniture. We are limited in our earning potential (quite literally women are legally not permitted to earn the same as a male for the same work) and when we marry, we lose ownership of any properties we have acquired, as well as incomes we have any.

We do not even have rights to our own children.

It won’t be until:

• 1903 that the Suffragettes become and organised group to fight for the right of women to vote,
• 1922 the Law of Property Act is changed. Afterwards, women are permitted to inherit property and money.
• 1926 women were permitted to buy and sell property the same as men,
• 1975 women will be legally able open a bank account in their own name.

We could, however, cause scandal if we left home alone, spent time with a male that was not our relative unchaperoned or heaven forbid, expose an ankle! Gasp! Gentle people, avert your gaze!

These are the hallmarks of Victorian era England. Where we are so sexually repressed, one cannot even say the words pants or trousers or leg without causing offence! Brothels and prostitutes are legal only in military towns and frankly, I’m a little surprised even those are legal.

With that in mind, you may find the following.... shocking!

Allow me to set the scene for you.

The room is busy, crowded even. Heavy red drapes with gold fringe close off doorways that lead to rooms beyond the salon*. Burly men dressed in dark clothing stand on the outer edges of the room, visible enough to discourage bad behavior, but not enough to be intrusive. Lords with their Ladies (or mistresses, there is no judgement here) are chatting, carrying out animated conversations with an air of anticipation. The repressed socialites are more relaxed here than they would be in another location.

Servers, men and women, move between the tables topping up glasses and lighting cigars. They stand out from the clientele like beacons in the dark. They are brightly dressed in costumes that in any other setting, would cause an uproar and scandal. High heels, bare legs, short frill skirts and corsets that extenuate exposed flesh more than even the most daring of dresses worn by society Ladies. Feathers and glass jewels for the women. Loose shirts, no jackets, buttons open to mid chest, relaxed fit pants with suspenders and all styles of hats for the men. And the colours! The boys and girls all look like rare jewels.

And watching it all from the mezzanine level, overlooking the bar and salon is a middle-aged woman with an eagle eye. Her hair mimics the style of the ladies below, with a thick sausage curl laying over her shoulder. She wears real diamonds instead of the glass the staff are wearing. Her bearing is one of hard-earned dignity. She knows her place is not among her clientele when they leave here. But they do not intimidate her. Quite the opposite. If she told good King Willie* to put out his cigar, she needn’t have to say it twice.

Her dress is more sedate than her staff, but far more colourful than the ladies below. Certainly, a costume suitable for her position.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to Burlesque!

I am Lilly, your host for this evening and Madam of this establishment.

Before we get started, I want to go over my rules. There are not many, but they are enforced.

- I do not sell sex. You heard me. This is not a house of ill repute*. This is a fine establishment. We sell an idea of sex. We sell beauty. We sell entertainment. If you find yourself feeling... shall we say, a little robust at any stage before, during or after our show, that is something you need to take home to your spouses or lovers.

Keep your hands off my staff and my bouncers won’t have to lay their hands on you!

- I may occasionally lubricate the social situation with a little Dutch Courage to take some of that starch out of their spines, after all a little good will goes a long way. Also, a tipsy Gentleman tends to loosen the purse strings. But that doesn’t mean all your liquor is on the house. Oh, your word may be good at the card tables and prize fights but a promise on paper won’t keep a roof over my lovelies.

Bring your money, my genteel people, or you won’t be staying for the Show.

And make no mistake, the Show is what you are here for.

It will awaken of that part of you. That part you push deep down, to keep up that appearance of being such good girls and boys. We are going to make you feel it. Something forbidden. Something unacceptable outside of these walls.

Something... delicious.

Burlesque is not a strip show. Oh no, no, no. It is not some crass display of gyrating genitalia.

It is Cabaret. It is a circus, a comedy, a play and a Chorus Line all rolled into one. The comedians, performers and dancers are typically scantily clad, and yes, there is a striptease. But this is different. Anyone can take their clothes off. Anyone can gyrate in an in-your-face vulgar display. We are far, far more subtle than that. We demonstrate that a woman does not need to be naked to excite. Sometimes, it is what she leaves on that enraptures. There is an art to the performance of my dancers. Curated and choreographed, to entertain the Ladies and Gentlemen instead of just a display of flesh unabashedly aimed at causing arousal.

Of course, if I had a crystal ball, I’d know that our colourful Victorian Era Cabarets would eventually evolve and give way to entertainment that lacks our... subtlety. I suppose the ensuing generations lose some of that prudishness that marks our era. Or does freedom to express themselves in the way they choose lead to a lack of imagination? I think that may be a question better left to the likes of Thomas Brown, psychophysicist* extraordinaire. I will stay with what I know. What I know is entertaining the Gentry*. They expect a quality of performance that takes months of planning, training and rehearsals. They pay handsomely for what we sell and with competitors opening Cabaret shows in every theatre house willing to have them, I have to offer something special to keep those well-to-do patrons parting with their purses!

Follow me while I do my backstage rounds before the curtain goes up for tonight’s extravaganza! This way, quickly! We don’t have all night!

While my girls and boys while away the hours before the show limbering up, practicing old routines and trying out new ideas, the stage hands are busy organising the props and ensuring everything is in its allocated place. A show like this requires organisation!

Take the Limelights* for example. Their burners are checked and tested. I can’t have my star headliner dance in the dark, or Heaven forbid, without a spotlight!

You can see last minute checks being made on the rigging. Tonight, my darling of the stage, Rosalie Envy will be performing an act she has spent months perfecting. She will begin with a striptease, of course, giving the audience what they think they want. She will reduce her layers of luxurious costume down to a corset of my own design, leaving every man in the audience feeling like it is all for him. Then, we will give them what they are really here for. She will be lifted above the stage on a swing to perform dexterous acrobatics. No other Cabaret has a spectical like it. She will be the talk of the London elite for weeks!

It is an integral part of this business. Innovating and offering audiences something fresh, something new. Our Master of Ceremonies and comedian Uncle Joka, aka Joe Howell, spends many hours in Tea Rooms, Coffee Houses and Gentlemen's Clubs* gathering the latest gossip to change up his routine.

While Mr. Howell is busy finding the latest material for his act, Mademoiselle Anne Chappelle is not only choreographer and talent scout for our show but also finds the latest training methods for our Chorus Line girls.

I admire her greatly for her bravery. Enrolled by her parents in the Paris Ballet at a tender young age, Mademoiselle Chappelle's star shone brightly as she rose through the ranks to become an apprentice of the Paris Opera. That is where she learned the price a Prima must pay for her fame. The men who admired her young, lithe body while on stage paid a high price to the Directors backstage for the sort of favours we do not sell here*. Anne was eventually able to save enough money to run away, coming to London where she found a home with our Cabaret.

Along with sourcing our suppliers and building the necessary business connections, I spend my days designing the beautiful costumes for the show with our talented seamstress, Mrs. Edwards.

The success or failure of our theatre is a group endeavor. As all good business people know. And rounding out our team is my wonderful husband, James.

My strong-willed nature does not align with polite society’s ideal of a good woman. This of course caused my well-to-do, social-climber father many troubles. Just when he was starting to believe no dowery was ever going to be enough to encourage a man to take me off his hands, James came to his door with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. James was the perfect solution to Father’s problem. He came from a decent family and as a successful Mercer*, he would add to my Father’s ambitions of a higher social status. To Father, money was the path he needed to follow.

What did Father not know? This well-dressed young man was no stranger to me. We had met at a private gathering of like-minded social rejects in the home of a mutual friend. We bonded over our mutual frustration at the constraints of a society in which we are not allowed to be ourselves. So, we hatched a mutually beneficial plan. James would court me and in due course, ask Father for my hand in marriage. After we married, James would help me open my Cabaret and I would help his business by having all of our fabric supplied by him. A marriage of convenience certainly, but born of mutual respect. James did not have to hide being a Mollie* from me.

We have two beautiful children we dote on(appearances matter greatly and duties are duties), two incredibly successful businesses and a freedom neither of us had any right to expect. And one we share with our beautiful extended work family.

Now, the curtains are opening, the stage is lit! I have girls and boys to organise, costumes to check, rich socialites to part from their money and you, you have to find your seats before the spectacular we have planned for you!

Let us show you how we Burlesque!

Burlesque was a very popular form of entertainment in London between the early 1830's and 1890's. While this story deals with Victorian Era Burlesque, the most famous Burlesque in the world is arguably the Moulin Rouge (meaning 'Red Mill') opened in October 1889, made famous by a movie and a stage show. Burlesque gradually evolved over the years from the Cabaret so popular during Queen Victoria's rein to the Gentlemen's Clubs (aka Strip Clubs) of today, though the original art form never really died out. While Burlesque Clubs, like the one in Burlesque the movie, are few and far between, Cabaret and Burlesque dancing is still studied, taught and performed.

Definitions and References.

* Salon - meaning a large reception room, the term originated in France and also came to be used to describe a private social gathering of 'elegant people'.

*King Willie - King William IV, monarch of the British Empire between 1830 and 1837.

*House of ill repute - another name for a brothel used in the 1800's.

*Thomas Brown - the eminent psychologist of the mid 1800’s. Sigmond Freud was not born until 1856. Psychophysicist - the term psychologist was not used until the late 1800’s though similar terms were used. Psychophysicist was used by men who were distancing their more scientific approach to the study of the human mind from Phrenology, the study of the bumps on the human skull that were believed to give information on the subject’s behaviour and thinking.

*Gentry - a term for the upper classes used in the 1800’s. The term Ton, made famous by the Netflix Bridgerton series was not commonly used until the 1900’s, after the time this story is based.

*Limelight - Limelights were calcium oxide in specially designed gas (oxygen and hydrogen) lamps invented by Thomas Drummond. They were much brighter than the previous kerosene lamps used. They had the added bonus of being able to be directed and focused, introducing the first ever spotlight. https://www.britannica.com/art/limelight-theatre-lighting

*Gentlemen's Club - along with Coffee Houses and Tea Rooms, Gentleman's Clubs are places for the upper levels of the socio-economic English to gather. While Coffee Houses and Tea Rooms were open to both genders, Gentlemen's Clubs were exclusively for male patrons. Activities in the clubs included drinking, smoking, discussing business and politics. They were for socialising with equals, not another name for Strip Clubs as it is today.

*The dark side of Ballet. https://www.history.com/news/sexual-exploitation-was-the-norm-for-19th-century-ballerinas

*Mercer –a term for a brittish merchant who deals specifically in fabrics, especially fine cloth not made locally.

*Mollie – a term used for a homosexual male in Britain during the 1800’s.