The Chippendales: Chips ahoy

Published on Saturday 8 August 2009 00:04

IF THERE were no God, Voltaire once said, it would have been necessary to invent him. And, of course, people did. If there were no Karen Koren in Edinburgh, however, I don't believe there would be anyone capable of inventing her.

Fuelled by passion, adrenaline, nicotine and white wine, she and her Gilded Balloons (titter ye not) have – quasi-literally – walked through fire to keep your August surprising. No other major venue director takes so many risks, or has given so many their first step on Edinburgh's ladder. Every year there is always some delightfully unexpected booking from Koren (one year I feel sure she will have The Spanish Inquisition). This year, she has surpassed herself yet again.

Over the past few Augusts the campsite of the Teviot Debating Hall stage has showcased more cheese and sequins than a series of 'Strictly Come Cheddar'. And thrusting into the spotlight this year come The Chippendales, Koren's "surprise package" – ten guys who have muscles in places most blokes in Edinburgh don't even have places.

What was it that drew Koren to these twentysomething, six-foot-plus studs with buttocks like two apricots in clingfilm and jaws so chiselled they could chop wood, the latest in a long line of such studs who have been taking their clothes off to rock music under The Chippendales banner for 30 years?

"Retro is hip, you know," she declares. "Marc Swanson, who was my head technical guy a few years back, is their tour manager and he asked me. I went to Hamburg, saw the show twice and went over what I thought would work for the UK audience. It really is good old clean fun – titillation if you like – not daft like the Puppetry of the Penis boys; in fact, no penis in sight!"

One of Koren's female friends read about the booking and put digit to dialpad to accuse her of "letting the side down". To which Koren replied? "Bah humbug," she says.

So now I am sitting on the 52nd floor of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, the home of the $10 million custom-built, state-of-the-art Chippendales Theatre – with en suite "Flirt Lounge". I wonder if the boys realise a month in the Teviot Debating Hall is not going to be quite like this.

I am necking pre-dinner oyster shots (one fresh oyster, a glob of spicy sauce and an egregious amount of vodka) with Kevin Cornell, a young man who, despite having long, silkily blond hair and skin so smooth it makes the average newborn look simian, seems to me to have been carved from a 6ft x 6ft, caramel-coloured block of pure testosterone. Two down (if you'll pardon the expression) the table is Lind – dark, gorgeous, very Man at D&G (for whom he has modelled) necking a beer and wrapping his lips around a gently bleeding steak the size of your Scotsman Festival Magazine. When he smiles my Reactolites darken.

On my other side is Chaun (I know, but he is American. They can't spell), 23, a beautiful, Bourneville-coloured Texan. Chaun is a strictly vegan, teetotal Bikram yoga practitioner. I realise I'm staring. "So, your body is a temple?" I simper, mental images of removing my shoes and getting on my knees rendering witty repartee out of the question.

But these boys are more than just beautiful beefcake. They are fun and they are very funny. They are smart and they are skilled: medical students and university lecturers, businessmen, stockbrokers, mortgage brokers, top chefs and soldiers. And, of course, beautiful beefcake. Offstage, The Chippendales take themselves a whole lot less seriously than most of the guys you will find in the Fringe brochure's comedy section. We laugh all the way through dinner and out the other side: about people's misconceptions; about "wardrobe malfunctions" and the night Lind forgot his jockstrap; about the woman who flung Kevin's Calvins into the audience; about shaving those "difficult to reach" areas (yes, shave – you heard it in The Scotsman first: the Chipps don't wax) and about a lot more, which is not quite the stuff of The Scotsman's arts pages. Suffice it to say that if Lind does what he said he would do for Kevin, he should have been promoted to production manager by now.

And, no, they are not gay. Not the guys I met. These guys are not Muscle Mary Goes Showgirl; they are more like rugby players with highly developed personal grooming skills. On stage they are showmen. And they give great show – to more than two million women in 839 countries each year. This they take very seriously; as seriously as any world-class professional performer takes his or her show.

As a group, the guys spend 79,725 hours a year in the gym each year to keep "the product" in the kind of condition to cause mass ovulation in theatres globally at the point at which they rip apart the 12,243 white Fruit of the Loom vests they get through each year.

Each routine takes a minimum of two weeks of rehearsal once the choreographer has got it fully worked out. There are brush-up rehearsals every week plus more if there is a new cast member. A show involves anything from 15 routines (for the 60-minute Edinburgh show) to 22 (for the two-hour touring version). New routines are introduced into the Vegas show every three months.

In Vegas, after every show, every Chippendale has to turn up in the Flirt Lounge to be photographed and fondled and generally abused in a remorselessly sexist fashion. Poor lambs. But we all know it is just a giggle for the girls, don't we? Just fun. No follow through?

The boys roar with laughter. "Oh there's follow through!" says Kevin, executing a neat segue from vodka and oysters to red wine and red meat.

But women surely just flirt and don't mean it…?

I am wrong, I am told. Women flirt and do mean it. Married women and girls with boyfriends mean it most of all. These guys are chatted up with a view to a horizontal hoedown more often than Jonathan Ross talks about himself.

"Women can be…" Kevin shrugs admiringly and smiles. And then shares an enlightening insight into female sexuality: "Women can always make it OK. Emotionally. They tell themselves they are only doing it because their husband/boyfriend/whatever did a/b/c or didn't do a/b/c. So whatever they do they are not the guilty ones. It's the guy's fault."

Kevin was always Mr Rock'n'roll. Perhaps Iggy Pop is actually Kevin's picture of Dorian Gray, because this boy is a serious party animal and it just doesn't show. Long after the two thumping, pumping, stomping, sweating shows have finished, to say nothing of an hour's high-octane charming in the Flirt Lounge, he is still partying, girls hanging off him like dags off a sheep's bottom as I leave the Rio's rooftop nightclub in the small hours.

Kevin's path to the iconic collars'n'cuffs was unexpected to say the least. His mother went to see a show and enjoyed it so much she insisted Kevin audition. And now he is the Big Chipp; the artistic director.

Lind had run up student debts after majoring in kinesiology and minoring in nutritional biology at university. He had been a successful weightlifter at national level and decided to use "the puppies" to entertain the ladies onstage rather than impress other blokes in competition.

The "puppies" – or "guns" as Kevin prefers to call his – are awesome: upper arms the size of a small child. And hard? Harder than a Glasgow schemie. Oh ladies, ladies, do you have a treat in store.

But it is not only women who will get something to remember out of an evening with The Chippendales. (Settle down fans of Liza, that Brokeback Mountain routine to The Only Way Is Up is never going to happen. Never.) Time was that men didn't go to a Chippendales show. But, increasingly, couples come along together.

What would be the point, I ask, of a woman coming to see The Chippendales then having to scrape home with a man who must pale by comparison?

"The guys love it," says Lind. "One guy thanked me for getting his girlfriend 'all revved up'. Said it was the best sex they'd ever had, after our show."

So there you have it, gentlemen of Edinburgh. What other venue is offering you that included in your ticket price this August?

&#149 The Chippendales: The Ultimate Girls Night Out is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot until 31 August, 10pm (11:30pm on 22, 26, 29 and 30 August)