WE all know there are plenty of subtle but well known differences when it comes to how things are done in England and how things are done in Scotland. Up here, we like our sausages square, our men in kilts, and our fizzy drinks home grown, and now, to add to the cultural variations we can include ... burlesque.

The leading Burlesque queens in Scotland say that while performers down south take themselves exceptionally seriously and go in for ‘classic burlesque’, dancers up here like to splice seduction with a healthy dash of good old fashioned Scottish humour, and a side order of feminism. Put simply Scottish burlesque is earthy and ‘real’ and about the women, while down south it’s a bit more old-fashioned and camp, and often for the boys.

This week the differences will be fully on display at the Burlesque Festival in London - one of the world’s biggest celebrations of an art form which harks back to the fin-de-siècle Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Moulin Rouge, or the debauchery of the movie Cabaret and the Kit-Kat Club in pre-war Berlin.

One of Scotland’s top acts, hailing from Aberdeen, is the appropriately named Whisky Falls. Fittingly, given her stage name, she performs a ‘pour’ act. Traditionally, these rather salacious acts see showgirls clad in feathers and crystals pour champagne over their almost-naked bodies. Whisky, though, likes to do things in a more Scottish fashion. She’s dropping the crystals and feathers, and performing her act clad in leather and tartan, and instead of the champers she’ll be using good old Scotch whisky.

Innocence Bliss from Inverness makes no bones about the fact that there’s a political side to her act. She says her dance is about celebrating proud women and their “individuality and body confidence”. Wearing her politics almost literally on her sleeve, she performs in a rainbow costume inspired by the LGBT flag. In real life, Bliss has a much more restrained occupation as a violinist.

Also on stage will be Brandy Montmartre from Glasgow - aka Hannah Rose who is studying for a PhD. Her act celebrates the feisty women of Glasgow with her raucous rock ‘n’ roll jive/stripping act. Her act is about women who take no nonsense, love to dance and live life on their terms. The performance is funny, full-on and rather filthy. The act, she says, is “always a challenge, as it involves the most removals I’ve ever attempted in a routine. I’m sure I can pull it off, quite literally”.

Burlesque from Scotland, she says, is earthy and funny - more real than elsewhere.

“London is known for very classic burlesque,” she explains. “Up here there’s more of a scene for comedy, especially in Glasgow.”.

The more staid and refined veneer of English burlesque will get a final tweak this week thanks to Wild Card Kitty, who in real life runs a quite unglamorous desk rental co-working office. Her act is a twisted homage to Kafka’s horror story Metamorphosis - about a man who has been turned into an insect.

She comes on stage as a cockroach which has survived a nuclear apocalypse before proceeding to rip off her synthetic limbs. “I love performing a more traditional bump ‘n’ grind-type act,” she says, “but I also love infusing my work with humour – hence being a cockroach. I make the sexy look funny.”