12-05-2025
It's a burlesque Star Wars — with stripping robots
It's a summer of burlesque in London. The scene queen Dita Von Teese returns in June with Diamonds and Dust. Burlesque the Musical, set to the songs of Christina Aguilera and Sia, opens in July. But first up is The Empire Strips Back, a cheerfully odd but bizarrely boring collision of burlesque dancing and Star Wars fandom, which has played in more than 40 cities around the world since Russall S Beattie created it for a Sydney nightclub in 2011.
'They can't put tits on Darth Vader, can they?' a woman behind me wondered halfway through. Well, our amiably blokey host, Pete Dobbing, asks us not to give spoilers — when not asking for evidence in the crowd of Star Wars tattoos,
