Cilla Black Pole Dancing With Dale Winton?

By Anna Parkin

Soho’s chicest gay club, The Shadow Lounge, celebrated its 9th birthday last week with a glittering party for members and VIPs. I felt honoured to be attending the exclusive event as The Shadow Lounge is known for having a strict door policy and, well, being a lady, I wouldn’t be much use to any amorous revellers looking for love.

It was fairly quiet when my guest and I arrived so we managed to blag ourselves a cosy candlelit alcove complete with faux floral decoration. We were in prime position for ogling the handful of merrymakers on the largish dancefloor as they strutted to Ibiza remixes of Kylie, Cheryl Cole and Lady Gaga.

The press release had promised a host of stars would be attending, and I’d been hoping to see famous fag hag Cilla Black pole dancing with a luminous Dale Winton. Instead I got a who’s-who of reality television. Not that I’m complaining, I think I made up about 70% of the viewing figures for Paris Hilton’s Best British Friend.

As we sipped on warm white wine, our alcove got cordoned off with a rope, making us feel like real stars, or at least previous X Factor finalists. We invited the superb comedian Stephen K. Amos (pictured with me here) into our booth for a chuckle, and Australian heartthrob Daniel O’Connor (pictured above) came for a chat to tell us about making the move from soap opera Neighbours to London’s Gymbox where he now works. The scantily-clad waiter kept coming back to remind us we would have to move should a celeb arrive. With a sigh, I got my bag together just as BB9 stud Rex Newmark made his way through the doors.

By this point The Shadow Lounge was brimming with handsome males, generally well-dressed and in their twenties or thirties, although there were a few glamorous women too. The entertainment was in full swing, as the hunky Shadow Lounge dancers took to the stage leaving little to the imagination in their tight gold hotpants. There was gyrating, poking, caressing, licking and even kissing, although not much dancing, during their raunchy performance, which left most of the audience either blushing, laughing or lusting.

After their ‘cheeky’ performance, the dancers descended on the crowd to woo their adoring public. The pop hits kept playing and the cocktails carried on flowing until three in the morning as celebrities and civilians joined forces on the dancefloor, showing those so-called dancers how it’s really done. Roll on next year when The Shadow Lounge hits double figures… Cilla and Dale don’t know what they missed.