Bonjour, mes petits chums. Cette Vendredi c'etait le Jardin du Torture. A saucy evening dedicated to classy French Eroticism. There was definitely a French feeling to the evening with the lounge in particular looking like a turn of the century Toulouse la Trec poster (with modern attachments of course). The performances had a French theme, and the music was decidedly continental. Now listen carefully, I shall say zis only once -

The first performance was by a young lady named Chat Noir. She was one of those brave performers who stands up on stage with only personality and the microphone as a barrier between her and the crowd. She proceeded to read a very amusing poem about life in a french hotel, and basically entertained by being a bit crazy. I have always admired people who are this brave, and thought she was pretty funny. Bien fait, mon petit chat noir!

After a bit of a long gap (aaah, those long waits for shows at the Torture Garden) we were treated to a beautiful fashion show from Pigalle. Pigalle is actually the name of the old red-light district of Paris and she has always strived to give her clothes a touch of this classy baudiness. The stage was decorated rather nicely, and the clothes were fantastic. Rather than bore you with any more words I'll show you the pictures.

Unfortunately I think I missed a performance by Empress Stah, which I am sure would have been very entertaining.

The dance floor was completely packed as usual and the music was the usual high quality mix, starting with break beats and progressing on to Nu NRG, hard Trance and Techno, later on in the evening. The people were the usual well dressed and pervy group of reprobates that you meet at the Torture Garden, they would probably scare your granny half to death, apologize, and then offer her a cup of tea and a scone to make her feel better. Naughty, but nice!

The bar staff, who work for Mass and not the Torture Garden, had made a real effort to blend in as well. My favourite was a barman, with purple hair, dressed as a nurse wearing a very, very short skirt - extremely carry on!

There were some very nice stalls for retail therapy, including Whorehouse designs rubberwear, Prohibition uv glowy stuff and Killa Jewels jewelery (great name!). Oh of course there was us as well.

LondonFetishScene Were There Too!

Amidst all this chaos and madness was one little island of sanity. In the corner of the dance room was a little table creaking under the weight of three monitors, a computer (including the mouse and keyboard), several beer bottles and glasses (had to keep moving them away!), and the occasional drunk punter (I kid you not). This was US, yes your's truly, the LondonFetishScene travelling road-show (well we did travel from Clapham and back), displaying our wares.

In order to increase public awareness of our web-site, and meet the people who have already been there, we thought it would be a nice idea to do a public display. It was a lot of fun, but also a bit nerve-wracking. Around the table were about 500 extreme dancing people, most of whom just wanted to dance, and a few who wanted to browse as well. They danced, the floor shook, and the table joined in with a wonderful resonance technically known as a wobble. It was a bit like being on a boat at sea.

Two of the monitors were showing a rolling demo of pictures from the Photo Gallery, and it was fun watching people staring at he pictures as they danced. The computer in the middle was set up for browsing, and was also quite popular. I hope that the people who had a browse found it worthwhile. We also met a couple of photographers who hopefully will be contributong galleries in the future.

It was while I was guarding the table that a young gentleman made the funniest comment of the evening; "You've spelt Fridge wrong!" he shouted to me after looking at the event calendar. "Pardon!" I shouted back (it realy was very loud). "You've spelt Fridge wrong - Its spelt F-R-I-D-G-E, not F-R-I-N-G-E". Hmmm, Neverwhere at the Fridge, the mind boggles.

One final piece of gossip for you: According to the people from SM Pride, they were there to discuss giving Torture Garden some kind of award. At the time of writing it is still not clear what this award is for, or when they will get it, but when we know we'll let you know! So hopefully congratulations are in order.

Report by: Conrad Winchester.
Photos by: Angelita Codoni.
All words and images are (C)2000 LondonFetishScene, except images from flyer (C)2000 Torture Garden