Entertainment in London
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Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
As it says on the tin, this is a true working men’s club, which has opened its doors and let in all kinds of off-the-wall club nights, including trashy burlesque, vintage nights of all eras, beach parties and bake offs. Expect sticky carpets, a shimmery stage set and a space akin to a school-hall disco.
reviewed
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Churchill Arms
This traditional English pub is renowned for its Winston memorabilia, chamber pots, golf bags suspended from the ceiling and butterflies under glass. It’s a favourite of both locals and tourists (what either group makes of the Winnie/lepidopterous connection is anyone’s guess), and you’ll have to fight your way through scrums of punters at the horseshoe-shaped bar for a pint. The attached conservatory has been serving excellent Thai food for two decades.
reviewed
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Ten Bells
This landmark pub, opposite Spitalfields Market and next to the area’s striking church, is famous for being one of Jack the Ripper’s pick-up joints, although these days it’s about as far from a museum piece as you can get. In fact, ask most of the young and hip crowd about the history, and few will have any idea that this beautifully decorated, airy and friendly place has anything sinister about its Victorian past.
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French House
French House is Soho’s legendary boho boozer with a history to match: this was the meeting place of the Free French Forces during WWII, and de Gaulle is said to have drunk here often, while Dylan Thomas, Peter O’Toole and Francis Bacon all frequently ended up on the wooden floors. Come here to sip on Ricard, French wine or Kronenbourg and check out the quirky locals.
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Prospect of Whitby
Once known as the Devil’s Tavern, the Whitby is said to date from 1520, making it the oldest riverside pub in London. It’s firmly on the tourist trail now, but there’s a smallish terrace to the front and the side overlooking the Thames, a decent restaurant upstairs and open fires in winter. Check out the wonderful pewter bar – Samuel Pepys once sidled up to it to sup.
reviewed
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Amused Moose Soho
One of the city’s best clubs, Soho’s Amused Moose is popular with audiences and comedians alike, perhaps helped along by the fact that heckling is ‘unacceptable’ and all of the acts are ‘first-date friendly’ in that they’re unlikely to humiliate the front row.
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Captain Kidd
With its large windows, fine beer garden and displays recalling the hanging nearby of the eponymous pirate in 1701, this is a favourite riverside pub in Wapping. Although cleverly done up, it actually only dates back to the 1980s.
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Pear Shaped
Advertising themselves as 'London's second-worst comedy club', Pear Shaped is the place to destroy the hopes of enthusiastic amateurs.
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Ronnie Scott’s
Ronnie Scott originally opened his jazz club on Gerrard St in 1959 under a Chinese gambling den. The club moved to its current location six years later and became widely known as Britain’s best jazz club. Such luminaries as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, plus Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan have all played here.
The club continues to build upon its formidable reputation by hosting a range of big names and new talent. The atmosphere is great, but talking during music is a big no-no. Door staff can be terribly rude and the service slow, but that’s how it’s always been. Gigs are nightly and usually last until 2am. Expect to pay between £18 and…
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Royal Court Theatre
Equally renowned for staging innovative new plays and old classics, the Royal Court is among London’s most progressive theatres and has continued to discover major writing talent across the UK under its inspirational artistic director, Dominic Cooke.
Tickets for concessions are £6 to £10, and £10 for everyone on Monday (four 10p standing tickets sold at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs); tickets for under 26s are £8. Standby tickets are sold an hour before performances, but normally at full price.
reviewed
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Wembley Stadium
The city’s landmark national stadium where England traditionally plays its international matches and where the FA Cup final is contested.
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Milk & Honey
Milk & Honey’s number one ‘House Rule’ reads: ‘No name-dropping, no star fucking’. This select, dark-lit den is a members’ club that lets non-members in on weeknights (before 11pm), and you have to phone in advance to reserve your two-hour slot. This practice is heavenly if you like privacy and great drinks, and hellish if you prefer a more down-to-earth atmosphere.
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BFI IMAX Cinema
The British Film Institute IMAX Cinema is located in the centre of a busy round-about (there are plans to pedestrianise it in the not-too-distant future). The cinema screens the predictable mix of 2-D and IMAX 3-D documentaries about travel, space and wildlife, lasting anywhere from 40 minutes to 1½ hours, as well as recently released blockbusters like Star Trek à la IMAX (DMR and digital titles cost £13.50/8.75/9.75). The drum-shaped building sits on ‘springs’ to reduce vibrations and traffic noise from the traffic circle and subways beneath it, and the exterior changes colour at night. And size does matter here: the 477-seat cinema is the largest in the UK, with a…
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Matter
London's newest superclub, courtesy of the Fabric crew, Matter is the latest word in high-tech club design. No regular nights, just a busy roster of visiting promoters.
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Wimbledon
The All England Lawn Tennis Championships have been taking place here in late June/early July since 1877. Most tickets for the Centre and Number One courts are distributed by ballot, applications for which must be made the preceding year. Try your luck by sending a stamped self-addressed envelope to the All England Lawn Tennis Club (PO Box 98, Church Rd, Wimbledon SW19 5AE). Limited tickets go on sale on the day of play, though queues are painfully long. The nearer to the finals, the higher the prices. You might be better off going to the men’s warm-up tournament at Queen’s Club, which takes place a couple of weeks before Wimbledon.
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George & Dragon
Once a scuzzy local pub, the George was taken over and decorated with the owner’s grandma’s antiques (antlers, racoon tails, old clocks), cardboard cut-outs of Cher and fairy lights, turning this one-room pub into what has remained the epicentre of the Hoxton scene for more than a decade. Some of the best DJ nights in London are on offer here, with cabaret performances taking place on window sills. It’s total fun and mindless hedonism. Expect mustachioed media types and fashion-forward youths. Definitely not a place for a quiet pint, there’s a great jukebox, and it tends to get packed out at the weekends.
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Fabric
This most impressive of superclubs is still the first stop on the London scene for many international clubbers, as the lengthy queues attest. A warren of three floors, three bars, many walkways and unisex toilets, room one also contains a kidney-shaking ‘bodysonic’ dance floor. The crowd is hip and well dressed without overkill, and the music – mainly electro, techno, house, drum and bass and dubstep – is as superb as you’d expect from London’s top-rated club. Superstar DJs often sell out Friday night’s FabricLive, when big names such as Goldie or DJ Hype take over. WetYourSelf!, a hedonistic techno and house night, is a real Sunday night treat.
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Viva Cake Bitches
An evening with the self-declared Viva Cake Bitches usually kicks off in the late afternoon with tea, cake and sandwiches served by girls on rollerskates. Other diversions include dominos, knitting, baking and, if plans come off, a beauty bar, before the evening steps it up a gear with classic rock 'n' roll bands and jive-dancing. Remember to raid the dressing-up box for some vintage wear before you turn up.
The original among London's latest 1950s tea-dances, the irrepressible Viva Cake began life at the Bethnal Green WMC, but has since taken up a residency at the red-brick St Aloysius Social Club near Euston train station.
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Donmar Warehouse
The small Donmar Warehouse is the ‘thinking man’s theatre’ in London. But it has taken a step back from the days when Nicole Kidman administered ‘theatrical Viagra’ nightly by peeling off her clothes in Sam Mendes’ production of The Blue Room and Zoë Wanamaker really did Gothic Southern as Amanda Wakefield in Tennessee Williams’ Glass Menagerie. Still, artistic director Michael Grandage stages interesting and somewhat inventive productions such as Ibsen’s Doll’s House with Gillian Anderson and Hamlet with the blue-eyed Jude Law.
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Plastic People
This is a tiny club with just a dance floor and bar and a booming sound system that experts say easily kicks the butts of bigger clubs. Head here on Fridays and Saturdays for nights that are often given over to one long DJ set by the likes of Kieran Hebden, Kode 9 or Mr Scruff, smashing out mainly house and electronica.
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Princess Louise
We might have used the word gem before, but we take all of the other instances back. This late-19th-century Victorian pub is spectacularly decorated with a riot of fine tiles, etched mirrors, plasterwork and a stunning central horseshoe bar. After an eight-month renovation, it’s looking even better. The old tiles and plasterwork have been scrubbed up, and Victorian wood partitions have been reinstated, giving punters nooks and alcoves to hide in. There are Corinthian columns too, would you believe? Beers are Sam Smith’s only, and, at £2 a pint, it’s a wonder anyone ever leaves.
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Lamb & Flag
Good pubs can be hard to come by in over-touristy Covent Garden, but the Lamb & Flag makes up for any character or soul the area has lost – the interior is more than 350 years old, with creaky wooden floors and winding stairs, there’s live jazz on Sunday afternoons and, come sunshine or summer evenings, it’s a miracle if you can approach the bar for all the people crowding outside. Its setting is equally charming: the main entrance is on top of a tiny cobbled street, but you can also reach it from the backstreet donkey path that’ll make you think of Victorian England.
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Comedy Store
This was one of the first (and is still one of the best) comedy clubs in London. Although it’s a bit like conveyor-belt comedy, it gets some of the biggest names. Wednesday and Sunday night’s Comedy Store Players is the most famous improvisation outfit in town, with the wonderful Josie Lawrence; on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays it’s Best in Stand Up, which features (you guessed it) the best on London’s comedy circuit. Tickets are generally around £20.
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Last Days of Decadence
A brand new club that opened in the height of the recession, this is a place that celebrates the 1930s through its heady, abandon-fuelled parties and through its Great Depression–inspired name. Not that it sticks to 1930s music, however – you’ll find regular nights hosting DJs such as the out-there trannie DJ Jodie Harsh on Fridays’ Circus, and Last Days of Decadence’s eponymous night that mixes up D&B, nu-rave and jungle. On a quieter note, there are free jazz gigs on Tuesdays, and Monday nights are life-drawing classes – £10 a go.
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Egg
Egg has the most superb layout with three exposed concrete rooms (across three floors), a garden and two gorgeous tropical roof terraces (relieving the edgy, exiled smokers). It specialises in house, dance, techno and drum and bass. On Sunday morning, there’s a breakfast after-party. At weekends, Egg runs a free shuttle every 30 minutes between 10pm and 2am from outside American Carwash on York Way.
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