Proud Embankment opened it’s doors on the South Bank this weekend for a raucous preview night of burlesque and cabaret variety — with many more to come!

I took a burlesque virgin with me, and as we walked in the doors, through the lush velvet curtains and up the sweeping stairway to the cocktail bar for a Cosmopolitan (or two), he turned to me and said, “It’s very….Moulin Rouge, isn’t it?”

Yes. Yes it is. And I realised, as we took our cocktails to the edge of the balcony, looking down over seated guests and an impressive aerial performance rig, complete with starlet casually relaxing back on her hoop in a position I could never imagine a human body to relax in, that this is actually a rare thing.

Because Proud Embankment evokes all the fantasy of a Baz Luhrmann masterpiece, spiked with the gritty pedigree only found…