Raymond Revuebar

The Raymond Revuebar was a striptease and adult entertainment club at 11 Walker's Court, Soho, London, open from 1958 to 2004. Founded by impresario Paul Raymond, it was the first establishment in Britain to stage nude performance legally and continuously, and for four decades was one of the defining institutions of Soho's adult entertainment economy. After its closure the building was repurposed as a gay nightclub, placing it within the broader story of Soho's gradual transformation into London's LGBT+ social centre.

Paul Raymond

The Revuebar was the creation of Geoffrey Anthony Quinn (15 November 1925 – 2 March 2008), who adopted the stage name Paul Raymond while working as a touring mind-reader and variety performer in the 1940s. Born in Liverpool and raised largely by his mother after his father left the family, Raymond left school at fifteen and worked a series of jobs – including office boy on the Manchester Ship Canal and RAF bandsman during National Service – before gravitating towards showbusiness.

By the mid-1950s he was touring nude revue shows under the fiction that the performers were living statues, a device used to navigate the Lord Chamberlain's Office restrictions on nudity onstage. Recognising the commercial potential of a permanent London venue, he sold his house and car to fund the conversion of the former Doric Ballroom at Walker's Court into a private members' club, which opened on 21 April 1958.

History of the Revuebar

Operating as a members' club allowed the Revuebar to sidestep the Lord Chamberlain's restrictions on nudity that applied to public performances. Within two years it had accumulated 45,000 members. Raymond purchased the freehold of the Walker's Court property for £14,000 not long after opening.

The club was not without legal difficulty. In 1961 Raymond was fined £5,000 after the London Sessions described the entertainment as "filthy, disgusting and beastly" – a ruling prompted by acts that included allowing audience members to ring a bell attached to a performer and an onstage snake-charming routine. The prosecution did little lasting damage: Raymond continued to build the venue into one of central London's best-known attractions. By 1967 it had moved entirely to striptease and was running up to three performances an evening.

The Revuebar appeared in the Beatles' television film Magical