Taking his clothes off in a seductive fashion has paid most of Max Hunter’s bills for two decades – and he doesn’t plan to put his top back on anytime soon.
It all began in the early noughties, when Hunter’s then-girlfriend attended a strip show and told him how fun it was. He had studied drama at university, but after watching other friends struggle to make it in the acting world, the conversation made him consider whether this was the way to utilise his passion for entertainment. There was a separate conversation that was playing on his mind, too. “I’m a great believer in fate, and a couple of months before, I had stumbled into a psychic in a pub. She said, ‘I’m getting this vision of lots of girls taking your photograph, and you’re on a stage dancing,’” he recalls.
His first foray was being hired to attend parties while wearing only a collar, cuffs, a bow tie, and a bottom-revealing apron as a “Butler in the Buff”, but it wasn’t for him. “I used to hate standing in the corner with a tray of drinks for three hours.” He continues: “It was like pulling teeth. I’d be completely ignored and bored, wondering about my purpose.” He therefore had a brief intermission working in entertainment coordination at a retirement village before making it into the Dreamboys. Hunter now organises the Manchester, Blackpool and Liverpool shows, which requires phone calls throughout the week. However, his “office hours” are mainly 6.30-9:30pm on a Saturday, performing at the Liverpool show.
