Gaudy fancy

I need to meet a man who is not married, gay or racist," barks Sophia, my Palestinian Muslim girlfriend, down the phone. "Right then, I'm taking you to Vaudeville to meet the new Romanian gymnasts!"

She calms down instantly. Sophia, who looks like sexy Veronica in Archie Comics, is known by cabaret queens from Paris to Paternoster. Going out with her is like 48 hours of clubbing with seven drag queens dressed like Steven Cohen - pretty full-on - so Vaudeville, in a small side-street in downtown Cape Town, is perfect.

It's where you'll see twin blondes in red lingerie doing hula-hoop acrobatics mid-air, foxy air-hostesses cooing tra-la-la sweet nothings and female pussy cats in black catsuits purring into your butternut-feta salad. My neighbour is wearing fake boobs, but then she is drinking a blue cocktail. We order a bottle of Journey's End The Cape Doctor Shiraz 2005.

"So chiselled, sculptured, slightly too perfect..." hisses Sophia. I think she is yakking on about the beautiful body of the wine, but, alas it is the Romanian wearing silvery black skintight gym stockings. The Romanians studied gymnastics from the age of four. As my mum would say: "Some people will do anything rather than get a day job!" Touché.

One gymnast lets the other balance on his blond head. He looks like Big Moose but with a much smaller head. They do the most incredible sexy routine and it goes down really well with our wine. "Not as post-modern and minimalist as an Eben Sadie wine," I mutter. "But great to drink sitting in a Louis XV ghost chair!"

We demand Louis XV ghost chairs. The staff are most accommodating. Sophia and I request they remove the woman to our left wearing fake boobs - they kindly kick her to the kerb. Tone is everything, which brings me neatly to the insincere MC. He is crude. "Wouldn't you like to do her?" he suggests of a dancer. Then there are the lame one-liners and tacky punting of booze.

But our waitress is beautiful. She arrives with a smile as wide as a watermelon in a haze of glitter tattoos, flashing red devil horns and an itsy miniskirt with matching zebra stockings. We are ensconced in a red velvet cocoon and the more she smiles, the more we drink, the more we purr.

"This wine has the structure of, say, a Shakespearean sonnet. Although I'd prefer the remix." "Wonderful complexity..." chirps Sophia. "Not disjointed like a Lady Gaga hit. Smooth and velvety, like a warm burlesque cocoon."

A flash of a salmon-pink nightie and another flick of a hot-pink heel, but by the end of it all we want is a good Bisquit Cognac and Tom Waits tinkling on piano. Sophia has been to Aux Trois Mailletz in Paris, but kindly does not compare.

We agree there are a few tacky Maverick moments and that sensuality is far classier, but hey, Vaudeville is viciously popular and self-proclaimed as the ‘V-Spot'. Look, it is better than Sun City, but it has that same sticky-on-the-dance-floor-latenight- heeled glamour.

We head for Trenchtown to slow hip shimmy to the Rudimentals - it is Zimbabwe's 30th anniversary. They have no wine so we order Yellow Bird cocktails. We meet a guy at the bar.

"Hi," flirts Sophia praying he is single, straight and not racist. "Charlie," he smirks. "No, I'm not looking for Charlie, I'm looking for weed." "No, my name is Charlie." He orders three Yellow Birds.

Suzy Bell runs Red Eye Creative, curating contemporary cultural projects in Cape Town (www.suzybell.co.za). She will consider doing lunch with anyone who dares invite her. Email her on suzybell@iafrica.com.