Alex Proud, the owner of Camden Town's Proud Gallery in the Stables Market

Published: 30 May, 2012
By PAVAN AMARA

THE owner of a popular Camden Town nightclub has admitted he was "wrong” to send an email to cabaret dancers asking them not to perform at competing venues.

Alex Proud, the owner of Proud Gallery in the Stables Market, sent the message to two dozen acts telling them they were not allowed to perform at a list of 21 other venues around London, warning that the "regularity" of their bookings at Proud would be "under review with immediate effect".

The list included West End venues such as Madame JoJo's, the Cafe de Paris, CellarDoor, the Soho Theatre, and Volupte.

Speaking to the New Journal, Mr Proud said: "I was wrong to send it, but mistakes are always clearer with hindsight. If I had made the demands in that email to all the performers it was accidentally addressed to, including the part-time staff it was sent to, then they would have been possibly illegal demands and I would never have done that. 

"This should not have been sent in an email, it should have been done face to face, and only to a handful of our top performers, but instead it was accidentally sent to most of them."

Performers' union Equity says most cabaret acts are paid between £50 and £150 per show, and so rely on working a number of shifts at different nightclubs, or should be paid an adequate retaining fee to perform exclusively at only one venue.

Walt Utz, Madame JoJo's event manager, said: "I don't think it was a well thought-out move at all, and I certainly don't think he understood the ripple effect of treating the performers in that way."

Mr Proud said he would "never expect" his 10 part-time staff to not perform elsewhere, and said he would be thinking about exclusivity contracts for his star performers in the future, but was "in no rush".

"This debate is utterly stupid," he said. "It's misplaced. A bit of rain doesn't make for a winter, and one mistake doesn't take away from everything Proud does for its performers. In the middle of a recession, worrying about this is about as stupid as moaning about what's going to happen in the next election when you're in the middle of a world war."

Industry experts ThisIsCabaret.com were the first website to publish the email. Speaking to them, Tricity Vogue who performs her Ukelele Cabaret around the world, said: "People have been playing different venues since the days of music hall. None of us could afford to do this professionally if we were banned from working for different producers."