Casino? I hear you query. Yes, Casino. There is one. I didn’t know either. But it’s on Leicester Square (don’t start me…), either in or next to the old Empire building. Irrespective of the fact that I’ve point blank refused to enter Leicester Square (I suffer that too-long-in-London self-imposed exclusion zones complex, including this and Oxford Street) ever since I was a fresher, entering this place was bizarre. This strange flavour permeated right on through to the interior. As you might expect, it has a kind of gaudy cheap cruise ship feel about it; do the same designers and fitters do ships and casinos? I know why cross-channel ferry interior design staunchly assumes the easy-wipe style that it is. Bitter experience on vomit-fest crossings clearly demonstrates the utility, but why the same for casinos? And this casino is massive, with an eclectic and surprising range of clientele: Young American visiting-student types, lads-in-suits groups and, naturally, due to Chinatown’s proximity and cultural resonances, plenty BBCs. And then the trannies.
Famous and maybe miscategorised super tranny Mr Jonny Woo, who by fair or is it tragic fortune happens to be a friend of mine, was throwing a party. Well, he’s generally quite good that. But this was his birthday party. We are both Libran. And birthday boy gets what he wants. The deal? To go dressed as Mr Woo. “A night of a thousand Woos”. If you are not acquainted with said Woo’s general image then for starters get your head out of your arse, even the Observer writes about him. And for dessert here’s a rough guide. I first met Mr Woo many moons past at his infamous Gay Bingo, then at the newly opened T-Bar in Shoreditch. It’s bingo like never seen before (except maybe if you’ve seen inter-pensioner full-on bingo violence in Newcastle), with Jonny improvising a generally insane tale incorporating the ever accelerating stream of LED digits. My bingo baptism was provided with the host in full costume; it was Oscar week, so Jonny thought he’d go as an Oscar statue. Head to toe naked but embalmed in high gloss gold paint. With golden stilettos. A tranny CP30 – saying that, there always was a sniff of tranny about CP30 anyway, never mind Princess Leia. However on the day itself, Mr Woo sported more than his birthday suit. A quick invoker would be ‘twisted trucker’: trucker long wig, trucker moustache and beard, baseball cap. red and blue LED-rimmed giant spectacles, skin tight green catsuit –big one at that; Jonny’s not short on height.. And stillies, naturellement.
Juxtaposing East End trendytrannyness with the ever-so-misses-the-target ‘style’ of a West End casino of course only improved matters. Despite the magic mix, I couldn’t help wondering how this ever came to be. Jonny in fact originally wanted to stiletto stamp his ‘special’ bingo mark in the casino. But get this: you are not allowed to operate a game of bingo in a casino! Rather extraordinary I thought. Tranny or no tranny. No bingo. This is a ca-sin-o. But the Hackneyite gender anarchists (I know gender is only used for nouns but ‘sex anarchist’ wouldn’t have the same connotation here) had eyed the potential of the veritably fantastic space that is the Shadow Bar in the bowels of the casino, so a birthday party would be thrown.
Thrown it was, including the pancake mix. This being a tranny party, it wasn’t just drinks and fondant fancies, trannies won’t rest at that. Cross dressers cross dress. Gender reassigners reassign. Trannies perform. Discriminating the planned performances from those improvised sur le coup by some trashed tranny isn’t necessarily possible at this kind of shinding. But this one was planned, scripted and rehearsed and required the performing tranny to toss freshly-cooked pancakes. Now, you know I can’t bear the over-zealous health and safety tyranny that plagues this Land. This morning for instance, while playing removal man for a friend, I was nearly reduced to tears of despair by a box displaying: ‘Warning. When full this carton may present a health and safety risk.’ (Please legislate for the lawful extermination of those behind this demeaning drivel). So back in the casino I was somewhat bemused to see a tranny light a camping stove in the middle of the bar’s unbeatable flashing dancefloor. It was a wormhole moment. Glimpses of a Lake District campsite transmogrified and projected onto a gender bending central London soirée. The unmistakable CampingGaz blue canister sitting there like a talisman linking us to a more … acceptable world. The management freaked. No shit Sherlock. My highlight. Seeing a not completely sober Jonny negotiating with an increasingly tense bar manager about the use of said stove. She, suited and demure but tense. ‘He’, seven foot of skin-tight-sheer tall, slightly staggering but determined. In as much as I hate that H&S shit, I felt for the poor girl having visions of filling out the insurance form. ‘Unauthorised naked flame cooking equipment employed by transvestite on dancefloor.’ Boringness (and common sense) won. The flame was extinguished. But the brave performer performed on. Tossing pancakes still in the liquid phase does not however have the rehearsed effect. My second highlight. The bouncers cleaning pancake mix off every surface, ceiling included, within a 10 metre radius of the smug little stove. All amongst a maelstrom of now very trashed trannies.
It was time to leave. London had done its now you’ve seen it all moment again. Finding a path through the roulette wheels and poker tables, I was intrigued by the inescapable irony of the situation. They, the casino users, looked on at the ‘party’-goers in amusement, ridicule, sometimes disgust. The trannies looked on back condescendingly… don’t they know the house always wins? I spot another very smart bouncer pursue a toilet-bound tranny:
‘Madam, Madam, please cover up your titties, please Madam.’ (verbatim).
‘I haven’t got titties, I’m a man.’
