Editor Julia Jones Frequency 4 weekly Company Blue Active Media Ltd | Categories Pornographic men's First issue 1983 | |
Publisher Paul Raymond Publications | ||
Razzle is a British soft porn magazine, founded in 1983, published by Paul Raymond Publications. It currently focuses on the girl-next-door style pornography, offering cash for any photos of "readers' wives" printed; in the past, however, several notable glamour models were featured, including minor celebrity Joanne Guest. It also includes the traditional "true" stories.
There was an earlier UK men's magazine of the same title that dates from the 1930s to the late 1950s. This was a pocket format title, which featured a colour centre spread by the illustrator George Davies. This men's magazine was later immortalised in the Ian Dury song Razzle In My Pocket (1977, the 'B' side to Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll), a story of a boy trying to steal a copy of said magazine from a bookshop. The song also appears on the 1981 compilation LP Juke Box Dury (side 1, track 6).
The name Razzle gains a fair bit of mainstream attention, having been mentioned on numerous British comedy programmes, including Meet Ricky Gervais, Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, and in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous where it is implied that Patsy once posed for the magazine (albeit in the early 1970s). It is also mentioned in Men Behaving Badly and Bottom, and in Little Britain, when Lou buys the magazine for Andy. The razzle stack is the way ladies were stacked four high, normally with a pint of Guinness rested to the side.
Despite the market for softcore pornography decreasing in the UK, presumably due to a combination of the internet, and more extreme material being available, Razzle is still successful, having launched some spin off titles including Razzle Extreme, The Best of Razzle, Razzle Readers Wives and Razzle DVD. Razzle does however offer hardcore imagery and videos of the photosets found in its magazines online, on the official Paul Raymond website.
Razzle is published by Paul Raymond's publishing house, whose other publications include Club International, Escort, Mayfair, Men Only and Men's World. All of the Paul Raymond magazines are widely available in newsagents, although some larger retailers require a modesty bag in order to protect minors from seeing gratuitous flesh on display on the cover. As from 2013, the magazines are also available in digital format exclusively on the Paul Raymond digital newsstand.
Early Days
Nicholas Whittaker, journalist and author of Platform Souls, Blue Period and Sweet Talk, worked for the company from 1982 to 1987, and played a major role in establishing the new Razzle magazine. In its first format Razzle was 48 pages and sold for 50p. He wrote of his experiences and the formation of the new magazine in Blue Period.