Spiv on a grand scale

He insisted that he was not a pornographer but an entertainer, and told the Daily Herald that the Folies Parisienne (sic) — one of his early shows, featuring the ‘Harlem Nudes’ and their ‘taunting, scantily clad Native Mating Dance’ — was intended for family audiences, and that children were taken along by their ‘doting elders’. When he booked a celebrated American stripper to appear at the Raymond Revuebar (‘The Athenaeum of Strip Clubs’ — Spectator), she was appalled to learn that he and his wife proposed to let their five-year-old daughter watch the show.

This family image was rather dented by such assurances as ‘this theatre is disinfected throughout with Jeye’s [sic] Fluid’. The actor John Standing took John Osborne to see Pyjama Tops: ‘… the ghastliness of all those tourists in raincoats wanking in the stalls. I knew John would love it.’ Osborne was so impressed that he returned for two more performances.

Most popular

Rupert Darwall

Labour has walked into a net-zero trap of its own making

‘I would feel much less easy with myself,’ declared Raymond of his empire of smut, ‘if I sold cigarettes and booze, because they are actually commodities that harm people.’