![]() They had to be over six foot tall and be able to walk in very high stilettos – that was the uniform. Terri Fox (former Jojo’s performer and manager): ‘The Barbettes were the heart of Jojo’s, without them it wouldn’t have been the same. The Barbettes were supposed to be neither man nor woman: we wore leotards and very elaborate makeup.’ Photograph: Stella Artois Stella Artois (former Barbette and Jojo’s performer): ‘I started out making costumes for the Barbettes when the club first opened but suddenly found myself working as one, as well as performing in cabaret shows. I was finishing at the Palladium, then getting to Jojo’s to perform at 11. We performed every night apart from Sunday. Within about a month, I was running one of the first drag shows there: singing, dancing, directing and choreographing it. I turned to Mr Raymond, who I kind of knew, and said: ‘‘You should really do a cabaret with some drag acts wearing feathers, a proper old-fashioned one – I could put it on for you’’. There was an act performing called the Broadway Babes. Scott St Martyn (ran and performed at a cabaret night in Jojo’s): ‘I was in La Cage aux Folles at the Palladium and the cast were invited to the opening night at Jojo's. Hosted by the inimitable compère Madame Jojo, the club would soon become his most popular venture. The so-called ‘King of Soho’, Paul Raymond preserved much of the area we know today by buying most of it up and leaving it untouched by modern developments. The ‘Barbettes’, a porn baron and drag acts: the early days of Jojo’s Sure, it was dark and seedy, but most of all, it was fun – and that is quintessentially Soho.įeaturing stories from the glamorous Barbettes – the original waiting staff in drag and six inch heels – as well as White Heat regulars and cabaret performers, this is how a crumby cabaret club became a London nightlife legend. Steeped in history, Jojo’s didn’t only launch the career of several cabaret artists, but was extremely adaptable when the fashions for clubbing changed. Madame Jojo’s was arguably one of London’s most iconic nightclubs: in the same tier as legends like Shoom, Plastic People and Fabric. And, while it was reported last year that Jojo’s was going to make a comeback in spring 2023, the doors remain shut and news has gone mysteriously quiet. A bouncer was alleged to have pulled out baseball bats to attack a group throwing glass bottles outside of the venue, although he was later cleared of assault. Photograph: White HeatĪs the years went by, the club was loved by everybody from students and London newcomers in their twenties to socialites like the late Peaches Geldof and Cilla Black – who once paid a surprise visit to White Heat, a club night which launched in the early 2000s and gave the former cabaret venue an electric new lease of life.īut in November 2014, Jojo’s became the latest victim of Soho’s reimagining from a sleazy hotspot to a multi-million pound leisure area, when it had its licence revoked following a violent incident. ![]() ![]() Before long, Jojo’s was the place to be: especially if you were a bloke that wanted a bit of slap and tickle. There had been a club on the site of Madame Jojo’s since the sixties, when Soho was a red light district run by London’s criminal underworld. It opened as a cabaret venue in 1986 by porn baron Paul Raymond, whose company published Mayfair magazine, the UK’s answer to Playboy. You’ll have danced to the Klaxons and CSS and downed £2.50 (yes, really) vodka and cokes until three in the morning. There, you would have queued – often in the rain – up the length of Brewer Street, desperate to step through the doors under the white rhinestone ‘Madame Jojo’s’ sign. If you spent the mid-noughties listening to nu-rave and indie, it’s likely that on a Tuesday night you would have backcombed your hair, squeezed into some spray-on jeans and taken the bus over to Soho. ![]()
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