*****
5 stars

The late night cabaret club is alive and well in Edinburgh and with so many to choose from the difficulty is where do I go?  With the next question actually being, where can I get in?

One of these with a superb five-year reputation is ‘SPANK’!  The Underbelly, along with compares James Wren and Leon Fleury, strive to and succeed in providing a superb and varied lineup each night except the 31^st of August. Running from midnight to 3am it is perhaps not the longest by time span but the audience just don’t take that in to account.

Not knowing what I was going in to I discovered myself both branded and spanked, with a spank stamp on my arm to regulate numbers and prevent interlopers coming in. Despite having problems with his voice that scary man (not quite so scary now) James Wren joined Leon Fleury on stage trying to control a mooing crowd whilst introducing the acts. The atmosphere is electric and you just don’t quite know what is going to happen next. Part of the attraction might be the naked sell when shows are invited to advertise their show au-naturelle.

As a more mature, absolutely sober female I felt a little out of place but not threatened. The show however made up for that. I’m not going to say who were on but the line-up was superb.

Sheila