LOADED'S ULTIMATE STRIPTEASE DVD
DVD region 2. IPC Media.

Now, it might seem churlish to criticise a free DVD, but as these giveaways are designed to boost sales by encouraging people who might not do so otherwise to buy the magazine in question, then we should think of this as a £3.40 disc, which just happens to come with a magazine attached. And £3.40 for 30 minutes is not overly cheap. Excuses over - on with the review...

Loaded suggest that as these dancers would charge £20 a pop for a private dance, they are giving you £200 worth of product. Hmm. Leaving aside the obvious difference between live gyrations and seeing the same on your TV, I have to say that in most of these cases, I'd feel royally gypped if I'd handed over even a quarter of that fee for a dance. Lets cut to the chase: a few of the girls here don't even take their tops off, while others offer a mere flash of flesh. Now, this is not a bad thing automatically - many of the dancers we at Striporama admire from yesteryear never showed a nipple. But they were dancers; some of these girls simply move in a bored way around a pole, offering nothing in terms of artistry or style. They start off in bikinis, offering little strip and even less tease. With not even the reward of nudity, the result has all the erotic charge of a nightclub podium dancer.

Other irritations: two of the girls (I won't name them here) have that hard-faced, give-me-the-money look that the worst pole dancers are damned with and are utterly off-putting. And the direction is terrible - the unnamed auteur is one of those irritating types who clearly wants to be an artist but only ends up diluting any remaining erotic stimulus with bad editing, too-dark lighting and slo-mo segments which are clearly meant to impress his media mates.

On the plus side, the behind-the-scenes stuff is actually fairly decent, and I must single out Aberdeen's Cara for praise - her performance is sexy and saucy, she looks hot and comes across as being a lot of fun, both on and off-stage. I'd like to see her doing something more adventurous in the traditional striptease style.

So, not the 'ultimate striptease DVD' it claims... but it has its moments, and combined with the magazine's rather spectacular Carmen Electra photo spread is just about worth a look.

WHEEZY MCTAGGART