It's burlesque to the rescue! Members of Montreal's Dead Doll Dancers burlesque troupe did their naughty best to catch the attention of Prince Charles this past Tuesday, Nov. 10, when the future British monarch came to town to present new colours to the troops at the Black Watch Armoury and ended up at a circus instead. The Dead Dolls were hoping to get a royal pardon for a group of historic red light district buildings on The Main, including Café Cleopatra, that are facing demolition as part of the highly contentious Quadrilaterre St-Laurent project to redevelop the area.

The Dead Dolls had planned to pass the Prince an open letter appealing to his bald spot, er, soft spot for heritage preservation, hoping he could pull a royal heavy and maybe lean on the city a bit. Dare to dream. Alas, a group of about 100 hardline sovereigntist protesters pooped the party planned for Prince Charles, and the resulting riot cop cordon around the Armoury kept the Dolls on the outside looking in. It appears all was not lost, however, as the Dolls managed to grab some pretty impressive media real estate in none other than Paris Match, who yesterday ran a story about the dancers' attempts to waylay Charles. Included in the piece is a link to a fairly hilarious video enticement - including a very generous offer to dance on the randy Prince's pants - the Dead Dolls put together for him (below), and which may yet grab the famously randy royal's attention.