After hours: rocking the boat with the doctors

Sitting on Embankment pier in a full French sailor outfit with my stocking-tops poking out from my short skirt and a red sequined bobble on my hat, I feel a little silly. But, hey ho, it's a job - and as a burlesque dancer, I am used to popping eyeballs.

I panic slightly in case Annette misses the boat.

We're the entertainment at a doctor's stag do and I dread having to strip on my own, trapped on a boat. I've never done a stag before and only agreed to because the doctors seemed so terribly civil. But in the nick of time she shows up, or rather hobbles up, because under her fur coat I see a tight mermaid-tail skirt.

"Why do they want us to arrive on the boat in full costume? Grrrr," she complains.

Our brightly lit boat draws in at 9.20pm on the dot, male laughter floating out over the indigo water. I clamber aboard but Annette, incapable in her outfit, is lifted on. Geoffrey, the stag, and his guests are all thirtysomething yuppies and some are quite handsome, which always makes me feel better about getting my tassels out.

With them all seated on the top deck, the waitress hits my CD and I start my fishing sailor act in which my hook latches onto my knickers, but the boat is rocking so much that I fall over.

It's all very entertaining for the audience, who all rush to help me up and clap drunkenly and out of time, while I continue and finish in nautical star tassels.

The waitress whisks my clothes and fishing rod away and Annette takes the deck. She starts with castanet- clams that turn on her and bite her bottom and manages to turn her seasick stumbles into wiggly dance moves.

After a vigorous applause we go down to the bottom deck to change. Soon we are joined by Geoffrey the stag himself - sloshed out of his brain.

"You girls are ever so talented, why not come out with us?" he begins, but his offers quickly become less and less "husband-to-be" and we have to lock ourselves in the toilet in order to save his marriage.

"I got myself a handsome podiatrist's number earlier when we had champagne," confesses Annette, her back pressed against the door. "His name's James."

"Are you still going to carry on with Peter?" I ask, adding my weight to the door.

"Yes, he's taking me to Paris, remember. I still need some sugar daddy in my tea."

I ponder on sugar daddies while we wait to dock.

As soon as we get our envelopes of cash, we vanish, feeling as if we'd completed some kind of clandestine naval operation, escaping the clutches of the cold-footed stag unscathed.