Best throwback to Scollay Square

There's more than one troupe of sexy burlesque performers in town, but only one that exclusively channels the retro naughtiness of Boston's former haven of zaftig cuties, soused sailors on leave, and the legendary burlesque house the Old Howard Theatre. That company is Thru the Keyhole Burlesque, a rubric under which tassel swingers Tallulah Starlight and Scarlett Fever (known by day as Dawn Fornear and Jessica Scuillo) shed their clothes, as their Web site puts it best, to "showcase their love for Esther Williams, Ziegfield girls, World War II pin-up art." Having opened for Jonathan Richman this past summer and appeared by invitation at the national burlesque conference Tease-O-Rama in Los Angeles, the pastie pair has parlayed their tongue-and-cheek seduction into a weekly offering at the Paradise Lounge on Sundays at 8:30 p.m., a "retro-variety showcase" of hypnotic drummers, shimmying belly dancers, chorus lines, and agile acrobats. And since the Old Howard originally served as a temple, it doesn't seem quite so sacrilegious that the Frolic Room's sultry stripteases and flesh-flashing always take place on the Sabbath.

Frolic Room at the Paradise Lounge, 969 Comm Ave, Boston, (617) 931-8814; www.thruthekeyhole.com.