You might expect such behaviour at Magic Mike. A boundary has been crossed, the magic broken. He whips around and his affable mask drops. She gropes at him and tries to pull down his boxers. ![]() In the row behind me, a member of a hen party begins to climb over her friends towards one of the dancers, who is grinding against someone in the group. Yes, everybody’s pissed, but waiters serve drinks at the bar throughout and nobody seems to be doing anybody else any harm. It’s carefully orchestrated chaos, having the appearance of being out of control without actually being. When she eventually climbs back into her seat, her friend begins giving her a lap dance. When we’re told to get to our feet for a slow song, a girl two seats over falls down and spills her pornstar martini all over my legs. As she does, then goes to swing them over her head, an usher confiscates them in one swift movement. During a striptease section, one of the 13 performers asks a woman in the audience to pull his trousers off. Magic Mike Live is a theatre sensation, one that includes lap dances for audience members, whether they’re in their seats or have been pulled up onto the stage. He does not move an inch throughout the next 90 minutes of half-naked gyrating by the unbelievably ripped men on stage, gripping his rum and coke like it’s trying to get away. Looking around, it’s possible that this guy is the only straight man here. I am sitting next to a couple, a man and a woman in their early twenties. “Ladies, welcome to MAGIC MIKE LIVE!” booms the announcer, and the audience goes stripper-crowd wild. The lights go down on the packed-out room. “Yes,” he replies, a weariness in his eyes. ![]() When we get inside and I find my seat, an usher tells me to please put my glass of wine under it to avoid spillage. This is the scene outside the doors of the late-night Friday showing of Magic Mike Live at the Hippodrome in Leicester Square, the heart of London’s “glittering” West End. “You need a nice big cocktail do you?” one yells to the other, and they both laugh so hard they stop breathing for a second. Behind them, two women pose for a photograph, then tumble to the floor. Further ahead, a hen party is passing around goblets of a bright blue drink, a single flower languishing in each glass. “You’re having some water – no, shut up – you’re having some water or you won’t remember anything,” says a twentysomething girl, raising a glass to her mate’s lips as she protests. The conversation in the queue is both heated and slurred. Taken from the new print issue of THE FACE.
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