Eric Hobsbawm A Life In History – Richard J Evans

One operator was said to have complained to the police during a raid: ‘How can I be running an obscene show, I got a choreographer!’ Running a strip club was becoming an expensive business, and as Eric remarked at the beginning of his article, a number of the more ambitious establishments overspent and went under. These problems led in turn to the proliferation of more modest strip clubs where membership fees were correspondingly lower and the outlay and overheads kept within strict limits: They range from fairly elaborate set-ups to sleazy rooms with a few cinema seats occupied by single men who watch a succession of girls (interspersed by strip-films) taking off their clothes contemptuously to the accompaniment of one and a half records.

Of late some clip-joints (where suckers are sold blackcurrant juice cordial at staggering prices until they realise they will get nothing out of the girls who press this and other disappointing drinks on them) have turned over to stripping . . . At the bottom of the scale girls are offered as little as £1 for a five-minute strip. Higher up they may get £15–£25 (special acts excepted).

£16 a week for 11 strips a day (the girl paying her own insurance) is the rate at one club, but managers tend to be chary of giving figures. Actors’ Equity might well look into the situation which at present fills the West End with breathless blondes rushing from one club-spot to the next. It was difficult, he thought, for any one club to move ahead of the others, since the act at the centre of attention was almost always the same wherever it was shown, and this was a world of anonymous female bodies where there were no individual stars like Gypsy Rose Lee or Josephine Baker.

The girls were not really dancers, and whether or not they wore G- strings made little difference in the end. Perhaps taking Kingsley Martin’s instructions a little too literally, Eric recommended to his readers in particular the Nell Gwynne Club at 69 Dean Street, which he ‘congratulated for building up a stable core of girls and a “head girl” who relies on movement rather than a big bust’, and the Casino for its ‘excellent costumes’ and the relative sophistication of its shows. Eric did not follow this piece up with further despatches from the underworld of the Soho clubs.

Nevertheless, it marked a distinct change of gear in his writing for the New Statesman. From now on, his brief critical appreciations of individual musicians and bands gave way to lengthier general essays on aspects of popular culture.

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Richard J. Evans 2019 First published in Great Britain by Little, Brown All rights reserved.

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You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Evans, Richard J. Title: Eric Hobsbawm : a life in history / Richard J. Evans. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2019] Identifiers: LCCN 2018051780 | ISBN 9780190459666 (EPUB) Subjects: LCSH: Hobsbawm, E. J. (Eric J.), 1917–2012. | Historians—Great Britain—Biography.

| Communist college teachers—Great Britain—Biography. | Communism and intellectuals—Great Britain—History—20th century. | Jews, German—Great Britain—Biography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / General. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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