What the wild women of Banbury really did with my Pleasure Boys: Boss of male stripping troupe that sparked scandal admits the ‘guys go off-script’ – while midlife ladies grope, bite and chase his performers

As occupational hazards go, the worst most of us will experience is accidentally spilling coffee on a keyboard or a colleague nicking our sandwich from the office fridge.

Not so John Woodward, the brains, brawn and bravado behind controversial all-male strip act the UK Pleasure Boys.

John, 52, is retired from full-time stripping but before he hung up his Velcro trousers and packed away his policeman’s truncheon, he had been taking his clothes off in front of raucous women for nearly 30 years.

‘The majority just want to have fun, unwind and enjoy a drink with their mates,’ he tells me when we meet for a chat. Sometimes, though, things get out of hand.

‘I’ve come off stage with claw marks all over me,’ he says. ‘I’ve been bitten too, my nipples and… other areas.’

John, who has always done a full strip, will make many an eye water when he reveals: ‘I had to go to get a tetanus injection once. This lady bit me down there because she thought it was a prosthetic and then it wouldn’t stop bleeding.

‘That wasn’t even the worst pain, though – that was when I was poked sharply in the belly button by a long fingernail. That really winded me.

‘I’ve had nails jabbed in other places too, places they had no business being, but it’s part of the job. You’ve got to try to create an exciting show and do it without getting injured or letting the audience go too far.’

It’s accusations of ‘going too far’ that led to the UK Pleasure Boys hitting the headlines last month.

They had been booked to perform their Wet ’n’ Wild show in the genteel market town of Banbury, Oxfordshire.

The gig happened at Banbury FC’s clubhouse when, according to reports, things quickly went from ‘Wet ’n’ Wild’ to ‘Bacchanalian Bedlam’. Mobile phone footage began to circulate on social media with one horrified eyewitness describing the scenes as ‘the closest thing to an orgy I’ve ever seen’.

Non-league Banbury FC (ironically nicknamed The Puritans) released a statement saying ‘part of the performance towards the end went beyond what we find acceptable at our venue. We apologise to anyone in attendance who was offended’.

John, in his role as director of the UK Pleasure Boys, was there on the night. Shortly after the event, he announced that he was conducting his own inquiry. Has that inquiry concluded? Does he agree that things did get out of hand?

Yes and no.

‘I think the video clips I’ve seen have been edited to take things out of context completely,’ he says.

As part of the cowboy-themed act – a ticket for which costs in the region of £15 – the men leave the stage (naked) and go into the crowd.

John reveals that one particularly predatory woman had been chasing the boys around the room throughout the performance, seemingly determined to grab them in some way. There are no rules and touching is permitted, although he says ‘we don’t encourage lower-region touching during the show’.

However, at Banbury he says the prowling woman ‘reached up… and did something that was not acceptable while he was dancing on the table. Then there’s another bit of the show where one of our guys is hovering over somebody lying on the floor. It looks like they’re doing something they shouldn’t be, but if you check the footage closely you can see it’s not as bad as reported.’

That’s not all. John goes on to describe something captured on camera that may have appalled some but is actually a regular occurrence, he says. Essentially, a woman uses a dancer’s appendage as a ‘microphone’ and sings along to the song they’re dancing to. ‘Some people might read this and think “that’s disgusting”, but it’s harmless fun.’

He is adamant about one thing, though: ‘It wasn’t an orgy – the rest of the crowd was just normal. It was all pretty standard stuff, you know.’

It seems that going to see a UK Pleasure Boys show is a truly interactive experience. Not only do they do the ‘Full Monty’ in that everything comes off, they also engage in risque behaviour with the audience. They do lap dances, lift women up and sit astride them while performing signature moves such as ‘the helicopter’. (I’ll leave it to you to work that one out.)

They also do naked meet-and-greets afterwards where the woman is allowed to have a picture taken and grab hold of anything that catches their eye.

‘Look, if you go to a circus you might want a picture with a clown where you’re honking his red nose,’ says John. ‘If you go to the zoo, you might get a picture with a parrot on your shoulder. In our case it’s not a red nose or a parrot. That’s OK as long as everyone is reasonable.’

Suffice to say, the men are not shrinking violets and neither are their fans, some of whom follow them around the country.

Described on their website as ‘an all-out fantasy brought to life’, let’s be honest, the UK Pleasure Boys are not selling a refined and genteel night out.

John does not hold the stripper at the centre of the Banbury incident responsible but he has, for now, removed him from the act and placed him on non-stripping duty.

Reports circulated that the Banbury show was responsible for ending a relationship when a partner learned that his wife or girlfriend had been in the audience. John has no idea if it’s true but does say: ‘I’ve had messages from people asking us not to put out any video footage on social media because they don’t want it known they were there.

‘Look, guys can go off-script sometimes when the adrenaline is pumping and it’s up to them to try to control the situation, but this is an 18+ show. It’s called Wet ’n’ Wild! If you buy a ticket, you know what you’re going to get and I don’t see why the club felt a need to issue an apology.’

The majority of the UK Pleasure Boys are single and John has no issue with them meeting up with audience members after the show if they want, ‘as long as it’s off the premises. They’re free agents, I’m not their dad.’

As for him, after every show he rushes home to Rubery, Birmingham, to Lisa, his NHS nurse wife of 30 years. She has never had any issue with John’s job and is even happy to offer advice on dance routines and costumes. ‘It was Lisa who pushed me towards stripping. We had a young family and needed the money, and she trusts me completely.’

It was while working as a crane driver on a scrapyard that the potential of stripping first caught John’s eye. ‘I was working 50 hours a week and never had any money. As well as doing the crane driving, I was on the door of a nightclub. This guy called Rebel Red used to appear. He was one of the original male strippers in the 1990s and I’d watch him perform for 350 women.

‘Back then, I was making around £120 a week as a crane driver, but I realised I could earn the same in a single night as a stripper if I was good enough.’

Under the tutelage of another stripper called Scorpion, John learned the ropes. He started out solo performing under the name Adrenaline, doing a 007-inspired routine.

He can recall his first ever show at the Cadbury Club in Birmingham in 1998.

‘I didn’t even get to strip,’ he says. ‘There were 400 women there. I was introduced as the “new boy” and before I knew it 30 leapt up on stage and tore all my clothes off. I’d spent months rehearsing that routine and nobody got to see it.’

John – and Adrenaline – kept going and before long he was able to quit crane driving and become a full-time stripper.

‘It took me two years to be good. It really isn’t as easy as everyone thinks. In the beginning ‘a couple of more experienced guys called Rogue and Wild Thing had to teach me certain things,’ he says.

After building a name for himself, John also worked as a standby stripper for The British Chippendales, sometimes playing to 15,000-seat venues around Europe.

His five daughters, aged 32 to 20, have always known what their dad does for a living and, while they don’t watch his performances, they have all helped out with the business in some way, from editing videos to designing stage sets and taking control of social media.

He recalls: ‘It was quite funny when they were little. They’d go to school and say “My daddy is a fireman”, then a week later they’d say “My daddy is a soldier”, followed by “My daddy is a policeman.” I mean, broadly speaking they weren’t wrong, but I think it got very confusing for the teachers.’

John was then hired to dance and put a crew together at a club in Birmingham. Although on a good night the men would earn £500, the venture didn’t last and that’s how the UK Pleasure Boys were formed in 2007.

While famous male strip acts such as Magic Mike (named after the Channing Tatum movie) do not take all their clothes off, John and his boys always have.

‘Acts like The Chippendales and Magic Mike are essentially dancers who happen to strip. We’re the other way around.’

There are 20 of them in total, all self-employed, and John holds open auditions every January.

Should anyone be tempted, what does it take to parade naked confidently in front of a group of wild women?

‘You need to look good,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to be in shape, have some kind of rhythm and be able to learn a routine.

‘It also helps to have an additional talent. For example, we’ve got two guys with us now that are circus acrobats.

‘They don’t actually do the full strip, they just go down to their boxers.’

And if any older chaps reading this imagine they’ve left it too late for a career change, think again.

‘We need older guys,’ he says. ‘We’ve got some in their 40s but they look in their 20s, which isn’t any good when we play the social clubs. You get older women at those events and they want to look at someone closer to their age.’

Despite most of the UK Pleasure Boys being fully waxed, John insists it isn’t compulsory and a hairy chest is permitted.

And, given that this is a totally nude show, all body parts need to fit the bill.

‘Yes, they must be a certain build, especially when we’re doing our XXL tour,’ insists John. ‘The women expect to get what they’ve been promised.

‘I see what kind of a dancer a bloke is, let them do a bit of training… but if they don’t measure up there are other non-performing jobs they can do – a topless host, maybe.’

The troupe change their routine every year. Next month, the lassos and Stetsons will be put away and the beach balls and rubber rings will come out, as they unveil their Beach Party Tour.

The strippers all have other jobs – there’s an engineer, a few personal trainers and a gardener – because as John says: ‘The big money isn’t really there any more, but all it takes is for something to set it all off again.

‘When The Full Monty came out, that gave the job a huge boost – although it did make every guy think he could be a stripper and the market got saturated with ones who were pretty rubbish. Then Magic Mike came along and that boosted it all over again. So you never know.’

In the meantime, the UK Pleasure Boys are putting the Banbury brouhaha behind them and, come January, will be cracking out the inflatables. Let’s hope the vibe is more fun in the sun than Wild West.