Baring All (C4)

SHE spoke, Nicholas Parsons told us, like a vicar's wife running a tea party in the vicarage garden. But Phyllis Dixie's job wasn't anything to do with the church, although she did have her fans - two of them that she twirled tantalisingly to give audiences glimpses of her naked body.

"She had very big fans," we learned, although whether this referred to her followers or the amount of feathers needed to cover her modesty was unclear.

Dixie was recalled during this documentary about the history of public stripping and strippers. She was Britain's answer to Gypsy Rose Lee, the performer who put the tease in striptease, telling jokes as she got naked.

The art of stripping began in burlesque in America where the Minsky brothers presented young ladies removing their clothing for less than the price of a loaf of bread.

I liked the story about two strippers booked on the same bill. One used a boa constrictor in her act, the other employed a bird that undid the fasteners on her clothes. Sharing a dressing room (undressing, surely?) proved fatal - the boa ate the bird.

Even the dear repressed British exploited a loophole in censorship laws that meant performers could be naked as long as they stood still. London's Windmill Theatre made its reputation for nude tableaux.

During the Second World War the aptly-named strip cartoon featuring Jane in various stages of undress did more to boost morale that a bucket-load of Viagra. Post-war glamour magazines like Playboy continued the tradition of nakedness and the British, showing they were as keen to eye a nude as anyone else, had Paul Raymond. He opened his version of the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris in London's Soho district. Making it a private club got round restrictive legislation. Soho acquired a sleazy reputation, as Sale Of The Century's Nicholas Parsons recalled. "If you wanted a certain kind of prostitute you went to Jermyn Street; if you wanted a cheaper one Lisle Street; and if you wanted something really rough, you went down the Bayswater Road," he said. Realising he sounded rather too knowledgeable, he added hastily: "I'm not saying this because I had experience but you get to know what's going on."

Comedian Barry Cryer recalled that strippers' stamina was astounding as they went from club to club, performing a couple of shows at each venue and then moving on, keeping that up for 12 hours at a time.

The story was brought up to date, via the male strippers of The Full Monty and the Chippendales, to pole and lap dancing establishments. Today, the multi-million pound stripping industry accounts for every taste. In the US, gentleman's clubs have taken the place of bars. No longer do people ask for a pint of best bitter and a bag of pork scratchings. Now it's a glass of wine and a private - and very naked - table dance.