It’s Saturday night and I’m trying not to stare as a half-naked man drops to the floor next to me and starts doing push-ups. A few other blokes are watching videos on their phones. A guy walks in and playfully slaps another man’s arse. You see some weird things on the Central line. Just kidding. Tonight, I’m in a club on City Road, hanging out backstage with the Dreamboys, ‘the UK’s most famous male strippers’.
‘It’s a rush, I can’t quite explain it,’ says Shane Finlayson, 35, who has been stripping since he was 18 and has the manicured facial hair and baby-faced charm of a boyband member. ‘The first time I did a full-frontal I was so nervous I bought a litre of vodka, drank three quarters of it before I went on stage and was a mess. Now, when I walk out it feels like when you’re with your best mates on holiday. You hear the screams, the lights go up, the boys are all smiling, your chest goes out, you step on the stage… boom!’
