Blue chip tease: Bankers strip for the Vic
IT’S THE video they wish we’d never seen. Five top City names took part in a fundraising video for the Young Vic theatre which sees them rip open their shirts and sing at the top of their voices. The clip was made in the summer and screened at a fundraising gala back in October but has been languishing on the Young Vic YouTube channel since, until it was spotted yesterday.
It features Bank of England report writer and former JP Morgan executive Bill Winters, ICAP boss Michael Spencer, Citigroup’s Derek Bandeen, Markit’s chief exec Lance Uggla and founder of Clearbrook Capital Partners, Robin Saunders.
The clip is called “Life’s a Pitch” and it sees the bankers pitch an idea for a musical to a Young Vic executive. Their musical is called “Birthday Suits,” and the song is a cracker:
“Commute, commute, snatch a breakfast at Pret. Brokering a deal, we’re going to work up a sweat. Six pm comes and we’re out of the door, free of our shackles we’re bankers no more. Take off our clothes we are finally free, now that I’m naked, now that I’m naked…I’m the genuine me!” (Winters takes a solo for that last “now that I’m naked” – it’s spectacular).
So how did five banking names end up singing about moonlighting as strippers? Bill Winters is on the board of the Old Vic and Lance Uggla’s Markit is a sponsor. “We wanted to make a clip for the gala. I spoke with Lance and he said he’d get some of his City friends involved,” Young Vic development director Anna Jameson told The Capitalist.
The team only had one rehearsal before filming the clip and managed to get it down in a couple of hours. “They were excellent and all really up for making something fun,” Jameson told us.
Well, should any of them happen upon hard times, they’ve got their performing skills to fall back on….