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The Bath House scrubs up well
By Chris Beanland 28.08.09
She’s a tease: Vicky Butterfly wows the crowd with a risqué routine at The Bath House
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There's something special about a night out in a historic building that fans of ultra-modern superclubs just don't get.
Maybe it's the crumbling walls, the weirdly shaped rooms, or maybe it's just that pleasing sense that previous generations have got up to no good in exactly the same place.
From the former Smithfield meat chilling rooms that make up Fabric to the old Spitalfields toilets where Public Life settled, clubs with brush strokes of history have a unique, quirky appeal.
The latest of these is a former Victorian Turkish bath near Liverpool Street station which has been rescued from years of neglect in its former incarnation as a tacky restaurant, and transformed into a sumptuous club with endless period details.
The Bath House might be old but it's the new kid on the clubbing block and is quickly gaining a reputation among the cool kids. There's a flagship indie and electro night every Friday called Caligula, and a range of revolving nights every Saturday including Italodisco and dubstep.
But my friends and I are most excited about the Sabbath offering, the weekly burlesque-themed Boom Boom Club. Notoriously, Boom Boom Club had to relocate from Proud because killjoys at Camden council thought their schtick too risqué to be performed in NW1. So we ignore the fact we've got work in the morning and venture down to The Bath House to see what all the fuss is about.
When we pitch up at 9.30pm I'm immediately impressed. Often, hip clubs are scuzzy dives — it's part of the appeal — but the first thing that strikes you as you descend the spiral staircase here is just how lavish it is. I feel like I'm in a Mayfair private members' club.
There are flowers, fruit bowls, chandeliers, an atmospheric wooden bar and quirky touches, such as slightly distracting Thirties erotic photos plastered around the gents' toilets.
But this is no private pleasure dome. It's welcoming to one and all, straight and gay, City workers and hipsters... a truly inclusive kind of place. We settle back with house cocktails and wait for the entertainment to begin. The best of the bunch is the English Rose (£8), with gin, mint, rose syrup, pomegranate and lime juice. I manage to get through several of these delicious brews.
MC for our evening, Ophelia Bitz, opens with some stand-up comedy before Vicki Butterfly performs a saucy routine. Next, Roxy Velvet does more sauntering and sashaying before finally setting light to two swords in a flaming finale.
Piff The Magic Dragon — a man in a green dragon costume — entertains us with comedy magic before the best dancer of the night, the brilliant Kitty Bang Bang, comes out in Thirties costume, performing a seductive little number that has me —and every other man in the room, I'd venture — getting hot under the collar.
Our evening is not without surprises either. Ophelia calls for volunteers for a spot of audience participation and I'm dragged up on stage and forced at whip-point to perform an unnatural act on an apricot, the full details of which can't be described in a family newspaper.
Reeling with embarrassment, I do as I'm told but am so bad at the task that Ophelia orders me off stage and back to my seat — to good-natured jeering from the audience.
Later I join the crowd dancing to a soundtrack of swing and Fifties rock'n'roll played out by a DJ ensconced inside a giant birdcage DJ box.
What with the cocktails, the dancers, the historic venue, the lovely punters — and the aforementioned apricot — it's not an evening I'm likely to forget in a hurry. Whether you prefer a night that's clean or dirty, The Bath House scrubs up well.
