Channing Tatum reveals touch rule and safe word for strip shows
Magic Mike is heading to Melbourne, with Hollywood star Channing Tatum sending the city into a frenzy, giving audiences a taste of what to expect at the live stage shows.
Confidential
Don't miss out on the headlines from Confidential. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Hollywood star Channing Tatum is encouraging women to “touch” the male strippers in his Magic Mike Live show but says they’ll be able to use a “safe word” if things get too hot.
Tatum, in Melbourne to announce the tour, said the Magic Mike Live show will visit Australia in 2020, and open in Melbourne on May 26.
The show, based on Tatum’s hit films Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL, is described as fully interactive, with women in the audience — or men — encouraged to touch the talent.
“We want the audience to touch the dancers, we want that interaction,” Tatum said.
“Some might be: ‘I came to see the dancing, and I don’t want to touch, or be touched.’ But, by the end of the night, because they’ve had the option, they become some of the most interactive people at the show. It’s an option. It’s a choice.”
Tatum said audience member will be issued with a safe word at the shows — “unicorn” — to warn a dancer that they’re feeling uncomfortable.
“The safe word will mean: ‘I’m good, that’s as far as I want to go,’ or ‘I don’t want any part of this.’”
The show’s co-director and choreographer, Alison Faulk, said: “It’s powerful to know you’re not going to be judged for your choices. As a woman, that’s empowering, because you make the decision at any given moment.”
Tatum: “You can change your mind, like: ‘You were really hot two seconds ago, but then you opened your mouth, and now I’m not interested at all.”
That said, women are a driving force behind the show, from all-behind focus groups consulted on casting, to massive fan bases turning out to shows in Las Vegas, London and soon, Berlin and Melbourne.
“We bring a group of women into the auditions to hear how they feel about the guys,” the show’s co-producer Vincent Marini said. “That’s an important part of the process. We want good people (in the cast). They spend so much time close to the women, we want them women to like them.”
Tatum also attends interviews during stripper castings.
“We’ve turned away the sickest dancers just because, I don’t know, there’s something off,” Tatum said. “We don’t know if it’s gonna jive.”
He said the Australian shows will be fun because audiences here are “really game.” Tatum added: “You want people who want to be involved.”
Tatum briefly acknowledged his former life as an “actual stripper” in Florida, which informed the Magic Mike films.
“I always knew I wanted to tell the story of a weird, strange subculture of a world, (where) the people in it were wild,” he said.
“We didn’t know we were going to run into a 50 Shades Of Grey wave.”
While the shows are pitched at women, Tatum said men — straight or gay — are welcome, too.
In fact, he almost guaranteed a bonus for men attending the Magic Mike Live shows with their wives or girlfriends.
He laughed: “Trust me, if you have a wife or a girlfriend or whatever, I promise you will be rewarded for taking them.”
A bespoke venue, the world’s largest Spiegeltent named The Arcadia, is being built for the Australian tour.
Press notes describe The Arcadia as a two-storey, 600-seat venue that has been “meticulously curated by Channing and the Magic Mike Live creative team especially for the women of Australia.”
Magic Mike Live features 20 performers, including 15 “of the most talented male dancers in the world,” the tour announcement notes added.
MORE NEWS
LIVE MAGIC MIKE SHOWS WILL ‘BLOW YOUR MINDS’: CHANNING TATUM
MADDISON FUELS LIAM ROMANCE RUMOURS
JESSICA GOMES QUITS AS DAVID JONES AMBASSADOR
“Magic Mike Live unfolds in front of, behind and above the audience, enveloping patrons in an unforgettable, 360-degree, whirlwind of dance, comedy and extraordinary acrobatics.”
Faulk has worked with Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez.
The adults only show season opens in Melbourne on May 26, with 7pm shows on Tuesday and Wednesday; 7pm and 9.30pm shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday; and 5pm and 7.30pm shows on Sunday.
Ticket prices start at $75, and available from ticketmaster.com.au or 1300 795 267.