Perhaps more importantly, where has Star Wars BEEN this time around? Filming has been taking place in exotic locations around the globe and if you are in the mood there is no reason why you shouldn’t visit one of them yourself. If you are a real diehard fan, you might want to visit all of them.

The plot of Star Wars: Rogue One centres around Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones as the daughter of Galen Erso, who, as a leader of the Rebels, is seeking to steal the plans for the Death Star. This ties in very neatly with the scene in the follow-up A New Dawn where Princess Leia hides the plans in the droid R2-D2 before she is captured by Darth Vader. We are not going to spoil the story here by giving you all of the details, but merely show you some of the real – and incredible – places on earth where filming took place, and which you might wish to see.

Planet Scarif

Scarif is a tropical planet which is the place selected by the Empire to build the Death Star. In addition, it is the scene of a bloody battle on the beach involving many storm troopers.

In reality, Scarif is on Laamu Atoll in the Maldives, deep in the Indian Ocean. What a place for a holiday in the sun! Six Senses Laamu is a holiday resort consisting of wooden villas both on land, and in the lagoon on stilts. Here there is a spa, a fitness centre (just about every resort seems to have one these days), an on-site dive centre, restaurants serving Mediterranean style foods using organic ingredients, a pizza place, and a choice of various different Chinese foods. If you are in a sporting mood you can take a fishing trip, but if not you can just laze around on a sun lounger on the white sands of the beaches.

Tikal, Guatemala, is thought to represent the green moon of Yavin lV which is the base of the Rebels in A New Hope. In Rogue One it is not specifically mentioned as being the same place, but it seems identical. Tikal is an ancient Mayan city dating from the 4^th century BC and has a temple rising 150’ into the sky, deep in the jungle.

Stay at neighbouring Flores where a minibus will pick you up from your hotel and take you on a guided tour. Tikal has a visitor centre, rest rooms, gift shops, and even a post office. But beware: there are no ATM’s, so make certain that you have sufficient cash for a day out.

Jedha

This small moon is now occupied by the Galactic Empire, but used to be a place where followers of The Force would make a pilgrimage in much the same way as present day worshippers do to Mecca.

In reality, it is located in Jordan where you can float on the surface of the Dead Sea even if you cannot swim, so salty is it. Visit the city of Accra where you can see the citadel which is one of the longest continuously inhabited places on earth, and even today has sites which have not been excavated.

You can go into the desert and spend a night under the stars with the Bedouin. Visit the ancient city of Petra where the buildings are half cut into the rock. Check out the well-preserved Roman ruins of Jerash. Jordan takes you way back in time, yet the locals are friendly, and the country is perhaps one of the safest in the Middle East.

Eadu

This is the planet where Jyn Erso spent time with her father when she was a child, and may be her home planet. It is also where, as an adult, she returns to try to find Galen and discover what he knows about the plans for the Death Star.

It is actually in Iceland in the far south of the country at Myrdalssandur, near the village of Vik i Myrdal. Stay in the capital city or Reykjavik. Visit the geothermal area where you will see the hot spring and see Gullfoss, one of the country’s famous waterfalls.

Take a trip out on to Faxafloi Bay where you are 98% guaranteed to see minke and humpback whales, and in the summer hordes of puffins. Take a Viking Horse Riding tour, or go to the Blue Lagoon and immerse yourself in the healing warm waters.

The Death Star 

Maybe you won’t want to visit the Death Star, especially if you are not a fan of the London tube system. The interior of the Death Star is actually the inside of Canary Wharf tube station, so unless you like crowds and escalators, stay away.

Instead of Canary Wharf, how about visiting another place that features not in Rogue One, but in the previous film The Force Awakens? Part of this was filmed on Skellig Michael Rock off the South West coast of Ireland which you can visit on a Skellig Michael Rock tour here.

Stay in the same hotel as Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, and other members of the cast and crew, which has also been visited by Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, and Charlie Chaplin, among others. You can book a boat trip out to the rock where you can climb the ancient stone steps to the top and see the “beehives” where monks used to live over 600 years ago. If climbing steep heights is not your “thing” you can just book a boat trip around the island.

Star Wars: Rogue One is due for release in the UK on December 15^th.

Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of the famous American burlesque striptease artist, Gypsy Rose Lee and focuses Rose, the ultimate show business mother. To celebrate the filmed production of the stage show coming to DVD and Digital Download on 28^th November, we take a look at the history of striptease and its surprising origins.

ANCIENT STRIPTEASE

In ancient Greece, the lawgiver Solon established several classes of prostitutes in the late 6^th century BC. One class, known as the auletrides were made up of female dancers, acrobats, and musicians, noted for dancing naked in an alluring fashion in front of audiences of men.

In ancient Rome, a dance featuring stripping was also a common part of the entertainments at the Floralia, a festival in April honouring the goddess Flora.

Empress Theodora a 6^th century Byzantine Queen is reported by sources to have started life as a courtesan and actress who disrobed as part of her act; a little like Gypsy Rose Lee.

RESTORATION ENGLAND

Though stripping was incorporated in ancient entertainment, an early version of striptease as we know it now, became popular in England at the time of the Restoration. A striptease featured in the famous play, The Rover, written by Aphra Behn in 1677. Though the stripper is a man in this instance, he sensually undresses and goes to bed in a love scene. The concept of striptease was also documented in other works at the time, such as Thomas Otway‘s comedy play, The Soldier’s Fortune in 1681, in which a character declares, “Be sure they be lewd, drunken, stripping whores” suggesting stripping was a common known practice.

AFRICAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN INFLUENCES

The dances of the Ghawazee in North Africa and Egypt consisted of the erotic dance of the bee performed by a woman known as Kuchuk Hanem. In this dance, Kuchuk Hanem, disrobes as she searches for an imaginary bee trapped within her garments. The French colonists at the time observed this tradition and took it back to form the stripteases seen in France. Middle Eastern belly dance was also seen as a form of striptease in that it is dancing in barely-there clothing to entice the opposite sex.

18^th – 19^th CENTURY STRIPPING

Striptease became increasingly common in the brothels of 18th century London, where the women, called ‘posture girls’, would strip naked on tables for popular entertainment.

Across Europe, striptease was now also combined with music, as we often see today. In Germany in 1720, one particular act saw dancers, to please their lovers, drop their clothes and dance completely naked.

Some claim the origin of the modern striptease lies in Oscar Wilde‘s 1893 play Salome. In the Dance of the Seven Veils the female protagonist, Salome, dances for King Herod and slowly removes her veils until she lies naked. After Wilde’s play, the erotic ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’, became a standard routine for dancers in opera, vaudeville, film and and the popular striptease style of burlesque.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Parisian shows such as the Moulin Rouge  were featuring attractive scantily clad women dancing on stage. An act in the 1890s featured a woman who slowly removed her clothes in a vain search for a flea crawling on her body, inspired by the Kuchuk Hanem of North Africa.

20^th CENTURY STRIPPING

Gypsy was born Rose Louise Hovick but was commonly referred to as Louise. She started on the Vaudeville scene with her younger sister, baby June. However, when her sister left, it was clear that Louise’s talents could not sustain a lucrative career. She soon discovered that there was far more money to be made in striptease and took on the stage name Gypsy Rose Lee.

Lee viewed herself as a “high-class” stripper, and so she maintained class and dignity throughout her routines, her stripping act was only initiated when a shoulder strap on one of her gowns gave way, causing her dress to fall to her feet despite her efforts to cover herself. Encouraged by the audience’s response, she went on to make the trick the focus of her performance.

She has since been immortalised in a film starring Natalie Wood and most recently on London’s West End stage starring Imelda Staunton as Mamma Rose and Lara Pulver as Gypsy Rose Lee herself.

GYPSY IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD AND DVD FROM 28^th NOVEMBER, COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES (UK)