£75,000 grant for stripping classes

Pole dancing: £75,000 boost from the Arts Council
13 April 2012

Taxpayers' cash is being spent on striptease, drag and pole dancing lessons.

The Arts Council is giving £75,000 to a two-week festival where performers and the public can sign up for exotic lessons with The London Academy of the Burlesque.

Workshops include 'Six Ways to Remove a Glove' by stripper Jo King.

And a male striptease session is being taken by Ivan Cartwright. The drag queen, whose stage name is Candy Floss, also takes a class called 'Learn Drag in Two Days'.

John Clarke, of the Monte Cassino Veterans Association, which was refused lottery funding for a last visit to the Italian battleground, said he was upset by the 'crazy' funding decision.'We just get forgotten about, yet money goes to help people be strippers,' said the 80-year-old. 'It really just beggars belief.'

Yesterday an Arts Council spokesman said it could not control how the money was spent once it had made a grant.

Andrew Spencer, of the International Workshop Festival, said the classes at London's South Bank were a good way to keep fit and build confidence.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in