Boom Boom Club: A Turkish Delight at the Bathhouse
Vicky Butterfly captivates the audience. Photo credit: Boom Boom Club
Please forgive yourselves over any confusion on your whereabouts when you arrive at a multi-coloured mosaic mosque-like building, through the entrance of a church. This is the Boom Boom club on a Thursday night at the Bath House, just off Bishops’ Gate in Liverpool Street. It lives up to its name. It’s booming with rhythms from the thirties to the seventies with dashes of soul and swing and its beaming with decadent decor. The combination of comedy and cabaret is what really gets this place rocking and rolling in its theatre-style dinner setting. The act doesn’t start until half past nine, so there’s plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere.
Once Pizza Pomodoro, and before that an Indian restaurant, the Bath House has now returned to its original roots. As a completely renovated Victorian Turkish bath house, the place unleashes that opium den feel. Silver disco balls prance around bridges of mosaic tiles and pillars wedged in between luxurious burgundy velvet drapes canopying the ceiling. A random display of a ten foot birdcage acting as a DJ box comes into view.
At times it carries a Frankenstein or vampire feel to it. Orange flames flicker away in wrought iron lamps shedding some light on the Mary and Jesus figurines over the bar area, all in the name of good spirit of course. It’s a little random really, but that’s what ignites my interest.
A ruffling experience
Photo credit: Boom Boom Club
Through the silver candelabras, sprinkled in flaking wax, the opera-styled curtains open. It’s show time. It’s the Dusty Limits whose humour gets the crowd rocking back and forth. Thankfully Vicki Butterfly comes on to introduce some calm to the audience, as she graces the stage with her burlesque act. Cloaked in white feathers, she flutters around gracefully in her see-through bejewelled and black-beaded costume. As she unveils her act and clothes, roses cascade down her and the graceful movement of her feathers swoon the audience. It’s a classy performance and teenage boys might write poetry about her. It all gets raucous again when a singer starts to strum his guitar frantically. He amuses the folks with hilarious lyrics and anecdotes of his mental disturbances thanks to all the changes that have taken place such as Jif being called Cif, Labour renamed as New Labour and the Millenium Dome revamped as the O2.”Why must things change?” he bemoans. Then there are tunes on how he was once tempted to force-feed a Rabbi some pork.
Lady Gaga's older sister? Photo credit: Sonia Shah
Burlesque Banter
The madness continues into the night. A lush from California rushes in. She‘s a gothic looking purple clad Lady Gaga in her fifties. She’s frivolous and flamboyant to the point. Her hats mantle a killer stiletto shoe if not a well filled purple bra. An audience member has “the pleasure” of having his socks removed on stage and receiving a foot massage, her tongue gliding through from toe to heel. If that’s not enough to shock our dear viewers, she decides to pour some red wine into his trainers and slurps it down her throat. It gives foot fetish an altogether different stance and we’re choking on her act. But it’s time to bring back some burlesque. Bingo Burlesque is a real winner as one dancer drifts through– nipples, belly button, cheeky bottoms and arms covered in balloons. She pops them one by one to disclose the winning bingo numbers and some lucky stranger is the winner. It’s back to the limericks of Dusty Limit’s who cleans up the act with more belly bursting moments as he enlightens us about his gay lover leaving him bruised and confused followed by his affair with a priest.
Two hours of entertainment have flown by too quickly. It’s almost midnight now and the Bath House breaks into a frenzy of music until the early hours of the night, but it’s gone past my bed time.
For more information on events at the Bath House visit:
Tickets to the shows cost £5 in advance and £7 in at the door.
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