My first time at a burlesque class: ‘Could I thrust with a force that could kill a man?’
“Ever since we invented clothes, we’ve been looking for sexy ways to take them off,” Evana De Lune says. It’s Sunday morning and about 20 of us have risen early for De Lune’s burlesque 101.
We’re all here for different reasons. A few women in their 50s want to step out of their comfort zone and rediscover who they are. “I just want to reclaim my confidence again as a woman because I’ve really lost that,” one says. A woman in her 30s says she was inspired by the Christina Aguilera movie Burlesque, and a beginner pole dancer wants to learn what to do with her hands.
And I’m here because the idea of raunchy dancing is terrifying, as someone who is so bad at regular dancing that a friend once said, laughing: “That was so funny how you were on the dancefloor making fun of people who can’t dance.” But I was just … dancing. How well could someone like me do the hoochie coochie, or what De Lune calls, with a twinkle in her eye, “whorish vagina dancing”?
It begins with how we stand. “We’re going to think ‘titties to Jesus’,” De Lune says, making the entire room titter. “Shoulders back, chin up, take a breath. Hold yourself nice and strong.”
In heels, De Lune turns her left foot, drops her right ankle, tucks in her tailbone. She is instantly commanding and oozes grace. I stand in ankle socks and copy her. I look like I need to pee.
We bring our arms up, all the better to absorb the power of affirmations. “It is so effortless being this glamorous!” says De Lune, hamming it up. We repeat after her, giggling, women in shorts and crop tops, leggings and T-shirts.
“My nipples are so expensive!” declares De Lune. “That’s why I cover them! In these little hats.
“You could never afford me! I mean, look at me. I’m so, so sexy. I feel like I’m losing money just standing here.”
Her tongue-in-cheek assertions do their job to break the ice. Which is great, because soon we will be thrusting. “Some people feel a little bit shy about thrusting,” De Lune says. “I want you to thrust with the force that you could kill a man with your pelvis. Bump like you mean it.” I look around and see some intense action – definitely some murders on the dancefloor. In comparison, I look like I’m at a train station trying to nudge a turnstile to move.
After thrusting, there is fingering. It’s part of the glove peel, where we remove the glove in a teasing way. We each select a pair from De Lune’s collection of black and red satin gloves. I copy her and move my left hand down the shaft of the right glove to its entrance and slide in my fingers one at a time. “It always feels better with two,” quips De Lune. “And then it gets to a point where you can take three.”
Then gradually I peel the glove off my hand. When De Lune throws it coquettishly, only one thing … comes … to mind. It’s clear why she was voted best burlesque performer at the Australian Adult Industry Choice awards. I, on the other hand, in my bright red gloves, look like I’m on Play School demonstrating how to wash dishes.
Despite my efforts being burlesqueesque at best, the 90-minute class is perhaps the most fun I’ve had on a Sunday morning in a long time. And it’s not just about nailing a two-and-ahalf-minute cowboy routine. Bumping and grinding is hot, but so much of feeling sexy is psychological – how we feel about ourselves.
At home that night, I find myself dancing to Rihanna. I’m yet to kill a man with my pelvis, but it’s a start.
• Evana De Lune teaches burlesque workshops around Australia• Jennifer Wong’s standup show, The Sweet and Sour of Power, is on at Musein Canberra on 22 June
what would happen to him. He was simply told: “Bad things.”
18. Good Omens(2019)
Who needs a desolated dragon called Smaug? Cumby’s most villainous voice role was Satan in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s fantasy romp. He lent a rumbling voice of hellfire to a giant CGI demon whose scariness was somewhat undermined by his defeat at the hands of an 11-year-old schoolboy.
17. Marple: Murder Is Easy(2009)
ITV’s adaptation deviated from Agatha Christie’s novel by inserting Julia McKenzie’s Miss Marple alongside Benadryl Cabbagepatch as dapper detective Luke Fitzwilliam. As the sparky duo investigated a serial killer in a sleepy village, it was a warmup for Cumberbatch’s promotion to lead sleuthing duties a year later.
16. Nathan Barley(2005)
A rare sitcom role saw Buttonup Catchyourdeath in Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker’s satirical takedown of east London hipsters. Sorry, self-facilitating media nodes. As business manager to absurd musician Doug Rocket, he “sat in his office all day, looking at charts” and was so boring that Rocket pointedly asked: “Have you ever taken acid? Because maybe you should.” Well weapon. Totally Mexico.
15. Dunkirk(2004)
Before Christopher Nolan’s film epic came this three-part BBC docudrama, combining eyewitness accounts with dramatised sequences. The Cumbermeister was admirably convincing as wounded Lt Jimmy Langley of the Coldstream Guards.
14. (2007) Stuart: A Life Backwards
Tom Hardy stole the show as homeless alcoholic Stuart Shorter, but Beddingplant Rumblestrip offered empathetic support as his biographer Alexander Masters, tracing how his friend’s life spiralled tragically out of control.
A theatre performance, strictly, but since it was part of a season of plays broadcast live on Sky Arts, it sneaks on to our list. Michael Dobbs’ twohander depicted a fateful 1938 meeting between Winston Churchill and Soviet spy Guy Burgess, then a young BBC journalist. Benevolent Slumberdown was terrific.
12. To the Ends of the Earth(2005)
This authentically salty adaptation of William Golding’s nautical novels is unjustly forgotten. Young Victorian aristocrat Edmund Talbot grew from boy to man while sailing to Australia. Bandicoot Thundersnatch brilliantly captured his voyage from entitled arrogance to emotional maturity.
11. The Child in Time (2017)
In this slow-burn adaptation of Ian McEwan’s haunting bestseller, Bergerac Dumbledore was quietly devastating as successful children’s author Stephen Lewis, whose four-year-old daughter disappeared from a supermarket. A moving meditation on grief and memory, love and loss – not to mention a forerunner of his new drama Eric.
10. The Last Enemy(2008)
An underrated entry on Predatory Junglecat’s CV, this dystopian BBC thriller found him playing one of his trademark troubled geniuses. Here it was reclusive mathematical genius Stephen Ezard, a sort of proto-Sherlock whose search for the truth about his brother’s death led him into a murky conspiracy.
9. Small Island(2009)
In the lavish BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Windrush novel, Banister Crumpetbrunch’s modest but moving performance earned a Bafta nod. As buttoned-up bank clerk Bernard Bligh, he belatedly returned from war to find Jamaicans lodging under his roof and wife Queenie (Ruth Wilson) in love with another man.
8. Van Gogh: Painted With Words (2010)
This docudrama about Vincent van Gogh was brought to vivid life by Bellringer Humblebrag’s magnetic portrayal of the tormented genius. Every word of dialogue was sourced from Van Gogh’s letters to his brother. With burning blue eyes and ginger beard, he put in a nuanced, impassioned performance.
7. The Hollow Crown(2016)
Cumberbatch is the second cousin
Hitting the bottle and having a psychotic breakdown while desperately searching for his missing nine-year-old son, Bettingshop Tumblemat is emotionally red-raw in Abi Morgan’s blackly comic thriller. As volatile, vodka-guzzling puppeteer Vincent Sullivan, his guilt manifests in the fluffy form of a blue Muppet-type monster. Fatherof-three Cumberbatch plays the nightmarish situation with commitment and complexity. In fact, it’s a dual role because he also voices foul-mouthed furball Eric.
4. Parade’s End(2012)
His stock sky high post-Sherlock, Benefit Lumberjack led Tom Stoppard’s BBC adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s tetralogy, set either side of the first world war. It was inevitably dubbed “the highbrow Downton”, which didn’t do justice to this majestic miniseries. As uptight Christopher Tietjens, torn between his socialite wife (Rebecca Hall) and a spirited suffragette (Adelaide Clemens), Cumberbatch was movingly repressed with a quivering stiff upper lip.
3. Hawking(2004)
His screen breakthrough came in this BBC bio-drama, chronicling physicist Stephen Hawking’s student years and diagnosis with motor neurone disease. Brisket Fumblelatch studied the condition and trained with a movement coach to accurately convey his physical decline. His remarkable performance was deeply moving and twinkled with wit. It was followed a decade later by Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar-winning portrayal, but the original is the best.
2. Sherlock(2010-2017)
The role that won him “thinking woman’s crumpet™” status and a fervent fanbase of “Cumberbitches”. In the dazzling reboot of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic, his Holmes was a highfunctioning sociopath with a heroin habit, a flowing Belstaff coat and a planet-sized brain. All mercurial moods and grandstanding speeches, Cumberbatch is such an intelligent actor that viewers utterly bought into the sleuth’s genius. The game was very definitely afoot.
1. Patrick Melrose (2018)
It needed something special to pip Sherlock to the prize. This bravura turn manages it. In David Nicholls’ note-perfect adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical novels, he played the titular toff across five decades. A searing performance peeled away layers of self-destructive addiction to poignantly reveal the abused little boy beneath. It earned Cumberbatch a Golden Globe nomination, an Emmy nod, the Bafta for best actor and our countdown’s top spot. He even carried off an eyepatch with aplomb.
• Eric is available to stream on Netflix from 30 May
and he told me off for driving while I’m high. I found it pretty funny because I find everything funny because I’m always stoned.
Obviously this means my car smells powerfully of weed, which is not really a problem until I have to use valet parking, but the valets usually find it funny and ask me if they can hotbox it.
Do people judge me? Not really. I once got kicked out of the parking lot at work for smoking weed and listening to fast jazz too loudly – a security guard came over and simply said: “You need to leave.” I almost explained that I worked there and I couldn’t leave, but instead I just drove two floors up the parking structure to continue.
People often have some sort of idea in mind of what a male stoner is like, and I think sometimes they can be a bit surprised that girls also smoke weed alone. Women are encouraged to act in ways where we see ourselves more as objects – like if we’re going to spend money on something it should be on makeup, or clothes, or a diet, something that “benefits” the people around us in some way. But I’m spending my money on weed and not only I am enjoying it, it also makes me care even less about being presentable in public.
There is a certain lack of respect for institutions on the west coast. Normies will always be normies, and they don’t necessarily like it when you’re smoking weed all the time, but I also think there’s less institutional pressure on bohemians to conform because we don’t really have any old institutions over here. All these fucking studios were bought out by tech companies – none of these institutions have respect, so it’s like, why should you not smoke outside a building or vape in Zara? The last time I was smoking a joint on my work break, a city janitor came along rolling cleaning supplies and asked me for a light. “Smells good,” he smiled.
As told to Niloufar Haidari
start our session. She laughed along when I told her about hauling jugs of water from our neighbour’s place, about my dirty hair and how there was just enough water to wash the critical bits. But when she paused and then clicked her tongue, I knew the fun was over. “How do you feel about having a guided conversation with your fear?” she asked. She thought that a free-flowing chat, a one-on-one with my imagination, might help me with my sleep problem.
Because my therapist was based in the city, 60 miles from where we lived– a postage stamp at the foot of the Rockies – we talked on the phone. So she didn’t see me nod in agreement when she said it’s normal to feel sceptical about the exercise and that folks who favour using the logical part of their brain sometimes find it strange. It was her kind way of saying I wasn’t the perfect candidate. I would be too self-conscious.
“It’s not necessary,” I reassured her. “The moose business has cured me.” As soon as these words left my mouth, I knew it sounded ridiculous. And it wasn’t true. For the better part of two years, worries about my health had been preventing me from getting a proper night’s sleep. Once I was awake, I couldn’t stop thinking about my breast cancer. A funny phrase, since it wasn’t even my breast cancer any more. In 2022, it had been cut, poisoned and burned out of my body. But, at night, thoughts of it coming back lodged in my brain, the neural pathway hotwired. I tried everything, but I couldn’t seal the hole in the night. I kept falling through it.
But the moose incident meant our nights were now interrupted as we tried to thaw the pump and pipe that had so reliably brought water to our house with a gas-powered generator, which required fuel every five hours, for nine days.
At first, I had been reluctant to take a night shift carrying gas to the generator. But, by the time I reached the well, my fears about what I would find in the night, such as cougars and wolves, had shifted. Soon, even the idea of being inside, let alone sleeping, began to feel like a crime. In the stillness and intense cold, the pressure to sleep – the necessity, even – seemed to evaporate. Instead of being worried about the night, I felt emboldened by all the beauty. Brave.
But my therapist wasn’t buying it. Wandering around in the dead of night wasn’t sustainable, didn’t get to the root of the problem. She wanted me to square up with my fear. I had been prepared for it to be awkward, and it took me a while to engage in this conversation with my fear as an imaginary foe, but once we got started it was fair and measured. Its big beef was my lack of vigilance, my inability to avoid illness.
“So, your fear is trying to protect you?” the therapist asked. “Yes, but it insists I plan for every eventuality. It doesn’t account for plain old bad luck.” We agreed this was unreasonable. I should cut a deal, tell my fear that there are limits. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend after a strained visit. I said: “I’ll check in with you, but not in the middle of the night.” Then I looked out of the window towards the well. Gently, I told my fear about my discovery – that night is reserved for snow and stars and wayward moose with their gangly legs and destructive hooves. I told my fear not to worry. We would stay in touch.
My sleep improved almost immediately. I still woke in the night, but my brain no long saw this as an opportunity to latch on to things. Within weeks, I was getting six hours of sleep and then, like dominoes, other pieces of my life started to fall into place. I would wake up rested, so I went for runs and lifted weights. I made good meals for my family and plans with friends. I even found the energy for a puppy. I went to bed feeling a good kind of tired,collapsing like a child after a long summer day of playing outside. With better sleep, eating well and moving my body came easily.
I still go to therapy and try not to push away the things that inevitably bother all of us. When they do creep in, I know it’s time to have an impromptu chat with the worries clamouring for my attention. It’s an important piece of maintenance.
This spring – long after the water was flowing to our house – a moose passed through our place. It occurred to me it might be the same moose, but there was no way to know. What I did know was that when the moose introduced me to the night, my fears felt manageable against the backdrop of so much beauty. And this shift in perspective, like a blast of cold air, turned things around for me. It was the moment when I was finally brave enough to step into the daylight. • Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?