The Crippendales

Lee Kemp was hit off his motorcycle by one car and thrown into the path of another car when he was younger. Since then he has been in a wheelchair. With interests of dancing and taking his kit off, he decides that the chair will not hold him back from his ambition of being a stripper and, with a group of other "physically challenged" amateurs, forms a male stripper group and sets a deadline to perform at a local club.

I can see what this film could have been and perhaps did aspire to be at the start but really it is very little more than a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a collection of men coming together to strip. The fact that they are disabled is the hook but nothing more interesting is done with it than is suggested in the arrestingly non-PC title. I'm not sure why but the film never seems to try to get beyond the laddish character to penetrate their characters and see what it really means to them to be able to perform in this way – maybe it doesn't actually mean anything to them than a laugh but I doubt it, although one wouldn't know it from the film generally.

This leaves us with a disabled, scaled down version of the Full Monty on the surface and nothing underneath, which I found pretty valueless even if it was short. Even the comments from the women at the end are pointless with the obvious "yeah, why not" type of thing being said. In fact I did find it a bit depressing to think that Lee's act of defiance against his physical condition was, in reality, him and his mates showing their c*cks to a bunch of meaty, devil-horn wearing, cackling, fishwives-in-the-making women tottering around is white stilettos and miniskirts as part of a hen night (a stereotype perhaps but watch the film if you doubt me). Director Marking doesn't seem to do much more than point and shoot and I must confess I though very little of the skills brought to this piece.

Overall then a disappointing documentary that doesn't do anything with the interesting concept than film it. There is little character exploration and, far from being an exploration of society's views on disability and the effect on the psyche of men, it just follows the group from forming to finally whipping it out. Not worth a look.

Last night's TV Far from being a tacky freak show, Channel 4's tale of disabled male strippers was a charm

Sam Wollaston The Guardian, Wednesday March 28, 2007

There's a lot of freak-show telly around at the moment. You know - 48 Stone Baby, The Boy With a Tumour Instead of a Head, all those programmes. But here are a couple that are a bit different.

The Crippendales (Channel 4) is a beautiful film about Britain's first troupe of disabled male strippers. Yep, that's what they call themselves; if you don't like it, tough. The leader is Lee, a proud, handsome man, who was paralysed from the waist down after a motorbike crash. John, a soldier, was hit by a car bomb in Northern Ireland, has a crumbling spine and is in constant pain. Andy has hyperekplexia, a rare neurological condition. James is blind ("Blind man's buff," quips Lee). They're going to get their kit off, all of it, in front of a room full of boozy hen-nighters in Brighton.

There was Asif, too, but he pulled out, as he couldn't square stripping with his faith (Islam). He was fine going down to his pants, but not the full monty. This is all or nothing. Well, nothing or nothing, I suppose.

We see the auditions, in the pub. And their training sessions, in the park. There's pain - from John's back. Then Andy has a fall and has to pull out at the 11th hour. They're down to three, and the apprehension grows as the time approaches. "The nerves grow, the cock shrinks, and that's not what a stripper needs," one of them says.

But they're great, of course, and the hen-nighters whoop and whistle as the kit comes off (the Crippendales start off dressed as gangsters, with sharp white suits and trilby hats). They seem to be a teeny bit nervous, but also pleased as anything, happy for once that people are watching them with something other than sympathy. Because there's nothing sympathetic about that whooping and whistling, it's pure animal.