Disco devil finds an ideal platform

Is he a cutout or is he real?

Bewildered Virgin Megastore customers grouped around graphic designer Andy Bill̩ on a recent Friday night Рand gasped when he started strutting his stuff John Travolta-style.

Billé, who works for London consultancy The Design Clinic, was minding his own business when a colleague replaced Travolta’s head with Billé’s – and submitted it to the unsuspecting Virgin as an idea for its promotion of top Compact Disco singles.

And so Travolta ended up dying of Night Fever while the full-length version of Billé was adopted for in-store posters and advertisements.

“I’m Italian anyway, I’ve got the dark hair, I like that sort of music, I’ve got the clothes and I love the film” says Billé, who became a live window display with his white suit and slicked back hair.

“I was shitting myself when I stood in the window with all the customers watching, but they soon liked it when I danced,” he says proudly.

Bet they did. Billé appears to be well worth staying alive for.

Imagine receiving your pork chops wrapped in a poster of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. This was one of the traumas experienced by new venture The Reel Poster Gallery when conducting a hunt for film posters. A butcher in Oregon, who also owned the local cinema, was using posters as paper to wrap his meat in when directors Tony Nourmand and Bruce Marchant came upon him. Their aim is for film poster designers to receive recognition. The gallery has just opened at 22 Great Marlborough Street, London W1.