Stripped

Based upon the real-life experiences of the actress Hannah Chalmers—who wrote and performs this one-woman show—Stripped is a thoroughly engaging exploration of the seedy underworld of strip clubs. It follows Baby, a dim-but-well-meaning young lady who is just trying to make ends meet in a world that won’t seem to cut her a break. Like a depressingly large number of girls, she is lured in by the seemingly easy money to be made in erotic dancing.

Stripped manages to capture perfectly the grim, grimey and grotesque world of lap-dancing parlours while never feeling preachy. Indeed, there’s a breezy, light-hearted charm about this production, largely a product of Chalmers’ megawatt personality. Nevertheless, this is a play that looks to shine a light on the cynically exploitative world of strip clubs and the underlying economic and social practices beneath their surface. In this respect, Stripped is quite an accomplishment. 

Stripped deals explicitly with the sexual exploitation at work in the world of adult entertainment, and makes a mockery of the idea that stripping is in some way empowering for the women who do it. Yet it does so in such a way that is compelling and entertaining, never feeling at all heavy-handed. This is a very funny performance and, for such a political play, it is to Chalmers’ great credit that one can come away having learnt something valuable without feeling that you’ve had to put any effort in.