I was delighted to see that Gentleman’s Journal have included us in their list of London’s top ten speakeasy-style bars. We’re the only one that’s a pop-up—all the rest are permanent bricks-and-mortar affairs. (Oddly they didn’t mention the Looking Glass Cocktail Club, where we’ve held a few private parties: access to the main bar is through a huge mirror that turns out to be a secret door.) See www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/these-are-the-10-best-speakeasy-bars-in-london. The image they chose is of SwingIt playing at one of our parties a few years ago.
Give the gift of the Candlelight Club
I was delighted to learn that we have been featured in the London Evening Standard’s guide to Christmas gifts for foodies, alongside high-tech coffee machines, a murder mystery dinner, you own pizza oven and a cheese advent calendar. You can check it out on their website.
If you’re looking to give someone a Candlelight Club experience as a gift, don’t forget that we sell vouchers, enabling the recipient to choose the date that works best for them. Details are the Gift Voucher page of this website.
Sell on your spare tickets with Tixel
Unlike some promoters, we have always been happy to transfer tickets between people. If you want to give or sell your ticket to someone else that’s fine—just tell us the change of name. Of course you may not know anyone who wants your ticket, so how do you find a buyer? In the past your best would have been to post a comment on the relevant Facebook event (there is always one on our Facebook page for each party we put on). But we have now teamed up with Tixel, an ingenious ticket resale environment. Here you can upload tickets (from pretty much any ticketing platform) and offer them for sale in a safe, moderated marketplace. You should see each of our forthcoming events listed, so you can also shop for resale tickets to our events as well.
We become a teenager
Miss Betsy Rose
Thanks to all who came along on Saturday, for an event that marked an astonishing 13 years of the Candlelight Club—happy birthday to us! The Candlelight Club has been many things, starting in a basement room where we made sandwiches for the guests before moving into a larger room upstairs, where our parties were often themed around places or aspects of the 1920s world, such as Paris, Shanghai, London or Chicago, or the Kentucky Derby, Super Tuesday (our corrupt politics special, in which guests could stand for mayor) or rum running off the East Coast with Bill McCoy. We’ve used a couple of larger civic halls, we’ve had events with separate cabaret shows running at the same time as the live music, we did a couple of event at Kettners before it got absorbed by Soho House, and we even popped up three times at the Wilderness Festival. (And every Christmas we put on a few private events for corporate clients: see our Private Events page.)
At our current ballroom venue in south London we this time had live music from the Swing Ninjas, with a special six-piece line-up for the occasion. There was burlesque from Miss Betsy Rose, DJing from Baroness JoJo of the Bee's Knees and hosting as ever by Champagne Charlie. In the bar Michelle Krausz was running her vintage jewellery pop-up. (Commiserations to Lucius the tarot reader who had to miss out because he was recovering from surgery—get well soon.) Here’s to our teenage years!
You can see more photos from the event at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720311454662.
Champagne Charlie works the room
The Swing Ninjas
Bring on the burlesque!
Jolie Papillon
We’ve just had our third event at a new south London venue. It’s particularly well suited to the entertainment side of things, with a big stage, good acoustics and an effective built-in sound system. There is also a generous dressing room area for performers with direct access on to the back of the stage. It was this that made me think it was a shame not to have more cabaret entertainment, particularly burlesque.
So at our May event we had Vicky Butterfly perform and in July we had Jolie Papillon. Despite her international reputation, this was Jolie’s first appearance at the Candlelight Club. Vicky, on the other hand, has performed for us on many occasions—in fact she was the first person to perform for us ever, gracing the stage at our inaugural event in October 2010.
I’m pleased to say that both events worked out very well, so I’ve been busy booking burlesque performers for the other events we have scheduled at this venue in 2023. For our 13th birthday party on 23rd September we’ll have burlesque from Betsy Rose and for our Halloween event on 28th October I have secured the eerie services of Suri Sumatra. If you’re kicking yourself for missing Vicky, she’ll be back for our Winter Ball on 18th November.
Vicky Butterfly
New year, new venue
It’s been a roller coaster ride since Covid struck—first we weren’t able to run any events because of lockdown, and later, after restrictions were lifted, we found the nation’s mood had shifted slightly and the patterns of how people came to our events was changed. Last year was tough, as many in the hospitality game will tell you, but we ended with a sell-out party for New Year’s Eve and every reason to be optimistic about 2023.
We’ve also got some changes coming up with the events themselves, and our first party of the year will actually be a Spring Ball next month at a new venue, a Georgian mansion in south London with its own ballroom, two bars, a garden and lots of space. If things work out we should be using this place a lot more in 2023.
Come and check the place out on 18th March, when we’ll have live music from Laurence Corns’ Hot Strings Review, a new jazz combo with violin and clarinet. (Those who have been to the Candlelight Club around Mardi Gras time will have seen Laurence’s other outfit, the Candid Jug Orange Band, pumping out the distinctive jazz or New Orleans.) As ever, hosting will be by Champagne Charlie, with DJing from the Bee’s Knees. Elsewhere you’ll find our tarot reader Lucius, and sketch artist Sophie Williams, ready to capture you in your vintage finery.
As usual you can reserve a table with Champagne, or book the three-course dinner. As before we also offer the inclusive drinks option in the form of a wristband that gives you unlimited Prosecco, house wine, beer, soft drinks and single spirit with mixer, up till 11pm—and at this venue there will be a separate bar for customers with these wristbands, so you’ll get a VIP drinks service too!
Laurence Corns at a previous Candlelight Club party
Book early for Christmas!
I know you’re probably just coming to terms with the fact that it isn’t summer any more, but if you’ll be wanting an office Christmas bash in three months’ time then you might want to get it sorted soonest. We’ve been taking bookings since May and, while we still have capacity, the more popular dates are getting booked up. To see what we can offer go the the Private Events page of this site, where there is an online form outlining some of the options.
And if you needed any further recommendation, we’ve just been touted in Squaremeal’s guide to Christmas party themes.
The Queen is dead. Long live the king
Although Elizabeth was born in 1926, solidly in the Prohibition era, this photo from 1939, when she was 13, is the earliest I could find. She already seems to show a stoic sense of duty
RIP Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Like almost everyone else in the UK, we’ve never known anyone else on the throne and, although she had no executive power at all, she was part of the fabric of British society and represented a certain spirit we associate with Our Finest Hour. Fortunately I think Charles is a safe pair of hands for that sort of calm, undemonstrative, self-sacrificing sort of monarchy. During the 1930s Britain saw another royal death, that of George V: that time round the succession was much more of a mess, with Edward VIII lasting less than a year before abdicating to marry Wallis Simpson, leaving George VI—Elizabeth’s dad—with the gig. So it’s funny to think that, without that unexpected hiccup, she would never have been Queen at all. Following the death of Elizabeth (or Brenda, as Private Eye nicknamed her—I never worked out why) Britain went into ten days of national mourning, with a constant programme of royal and funereal activities that certain functionaries have clearly been rehearsing for years. (As I write, the Queen’s body is lying in state, viewed by a steady procession of ordinary people who have been queueing for up to 12 hours for their glimpse of the coffin, while an honour guard of police, beefeaters from the Tower of London and various military representatives conduct a rather beautifully choreographed vigil, standing around the coffin with heads bowed, occasionally manoeuvring their weapons with well-synchronised ceremony.)
We actually had an event scheduled for the 17th, the Saturday before the funeral, but we ultimately decided to cancel, partly out of a sense of appropriateness, but mainly because a large number of ticket-holders had already postponed or cancelled their bookings, so we took that as an indicator of the mood or our customers. (Moreover, getting into London for the event would have been made much more difficult by closed roads and crammed transport, on account of all the mourners traveling in to pay their respects.) Our apologies to those who were disappointed (and I know one customer was from Australia and was only in London this one weekend) but hardly anyone alive in this country has had to deal with a situation like this before, and we think we’ve done the right thing.
Speakeasies are "in", apparently
I was approached by a journalist from the Sunday Times recently asking me what I thought the appeal was of speakeasy-style bars and events. I gave her a lengthy screed largely based on my own observations and theories about how and why the Candlelight Club appeals to those who find it appealing. You may have seen the resulting article (see below).
I must say, I wasn’t actually under the impression that there was a particular vogue for speakeasies—we’ve been doing the Candlelight Club for 12 years now and it’s certainly had it’s ups and downs, but I wasn’t sensing a new surge of fashionability. But it’s an interesting question, because it was in Weimar Berlin in the 1920s, battered by economic and political chaos, that the decadent cabaret culture that we reference at our events was born. In an environment where everything seems to be going to pot and it’s impossible to plan or build for the future, why not live for the now and drown your sorrows? Funnily enough, when we started the Candlelight Club in 2010 we were still in the tail end of the “credit crunch” financial crash, yet things took off pretty rapidly in the first year: I always wondered if it was fuelled by a similar “life is a cabaret” attitude. Certainly that period in the UK witnessed a rise in a WWII-style “make do and mend” outlook, a huge upswing of interest in all things vintage, in upcycling and endless iterations of the wartime “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan. And suddenly we were all baking at home. It was indeed as if we were all seeking the comfort of the past.
The elephant in the room is that we’re in a similar position now: thanks to Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine we’re all feeling the financial pinch. (And are we seeing a Weimar-style political maelstrom, with infighting among corrupt and incompetent leaders? I guess that depends on your political viewpoint…) So next month we’ll see whether people decide that life is indeed a cabaret and come flocking to our soirées to raise a glass of Champagne, guffaw at our cabaret antics and dance wildly to the latest jazz music.
Last soirée of the summer
Elise Roth and her High Standards
It’s been a tough old year for us, with both the lingering spectre of Covid and the cost of living crisis making business hard. But we’ve thrown some great parties and hosted some amazing talented performers.
For our last bash before we take a summer break, we had live music from the delightful Elise Roth and her High Standards. Leading the revels as ever was our Host with the Most, Champagne Charlie and spinning platters of vintage delight was Baroness JoJo of the Bee's Knees. Down in the basement was our resident tarot reader Lucius and Michelle Krausz's pop-up vintage jewellery shop. You can see many more photos in this album on Flickr.
Many thanks to all who came—have a great summer and we'll see you in September!
We help create a night at "The 43"
To mark the release of the 1921 census, the National Archives currently have an exhibition about the ordinary 1920s people whose lives are documented in it. One of those was the—actually not so ordinary—Kate Meyrick, who ran a string of illegal drinking dens in Soho, and was jailed five times as a result. Each time she got out of prison she would start a new night club, sometimes on the same premises as the old one. The exhibition contains police reports of undercover officers trying to get a drink after hours. Kate's most famous club was the 43, at 43 Gerrard Street (now a Chinese supermarket).
Last Friday the National Archives held a party at their Kew premises, styled as "A Night at the 43". The Candlelight Club was asked to provide the entertainment—with hosting by our own Champagne Charlie, live music from Jack Calloway and his Parlophonians, dance routines from the Gatsby Girls, DJing from Aila of the Bee's Knees and table magic from Neil Kelso.
See the full set of photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720299245035.
Exclusive offer on Judy Garland tickets
The @britishfilminstitute is offering Candlelight Clubbers two tickets for the price of one for their season of Judy Garland movies next month.
Garland was painted as a tragic figure by an intrusive press, but on the 100th anniversary of her birth the BFI is focusing instead on the depth and breadth of her talent. "[Judy] was a great, great comedian and she could do more things than any girl I ever knew," said Bing Crosby. "Act, sing, dance, make you laugh. She was everything." The season includes her most famous films, The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Meet Me in St Louis (1944), but also her early work, the MGM pairings with Mickey Rooney, her tour de force A Star is Born (1954) and her sombre, non-singing role in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
To get the discount use the code JUDY241 when booking online at whatson.bfi.org.uk.
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Champagne Charlie, our resident host and Master of Ceremonies, was not able to make our April event, so our special guest host was Weimar vixen Eva Von Schnippisch. in her honour we added a flavour of 1920s Berlin to proceedings. As immortalised in Christopher Isherwood’s stories and the musical Cabaret that was based on them, it was a time of political chaos—with the Weimar government crumbling and disparate groups from Nazis to communists vying for influence—and economic meltdown, with inflation so high that banknotes had to be overprinted with values a thousand times higher, and people paid in wheelbarrows full of cash. The hopelessness seemed to breed hedonism, along with creative fervour, bold new art forms and a social permissiveness. To enhance the mood we projected Weimar movies on the wall (Asphalt, 1929; The Joyless Street, 1925, starring Great Garbo; Fritz Lang's dystopian masterpiece Metropolis, 1927; and The Blue Angel, 1930, with Marlene Dietrich), and we even had a special Gothic version of our logo above the bar. Live music came from jazz deviants the Swing Ninjas and spinning vintage platters was Holly of the Bee's Knees. You can see a full set of photos in this album on Flickr.
Let the good times roll!
Happy Mardi Gras!
OK, in the UK we don't really mark this with much more than a few pancakes, but in New Orleans Mardi Gras means weeks of parades and parties. It's a city that played an important part in the history of the Jazz Age—it's generally considered to be the birthplace of blues and jazz music, and also a town that knows how to party. During Prohibition it probably took less notice of the alcohol ban than any other city. Crack Prohibition agent Izzy Einstein used to gauge the challenge he would face policing a town by seeing how long it took him to get a drink when he arrived: in New York it took 14 minutes; in New Orleans it took 37 seconds. (When he asked his cab driver where he could get a drink, the cabbie reached back passed him a bottle.)
In the run-up to Mardi Gras New Orleanians really let rip, with a festival of masks, costumes and music. Dozens of "Krewes" spend all year putting displays together and as they parade through the city they fling trinkets, specially minted coins and strings of gold, purple and green beads from their floats into the crowd. We had those at our party, and we projected New-Orleans-set vintage movies and original footage of the city in the 1920s and 1930s.
For our event we had live music from the Candid Jug Orange Band, playing famous New Orleans tunes, which often reference Mardi Gras, and tend to have a distinctive rolling rhythm. Thanks to all who came along and contributed to such a lively atmosphere, especially those who sported the traditional Mardi Gras colours or green, gold and purple. (Those colours date back to the Rex parade of 1872, when the King of the Carnival made declaration that everywhere should be draped in those colours, though no one seems to have asked why!)
You can see photos from the event in this album on Flickr.
Here's looking at you, 2022
It’s been a rocky few months, with plenty of highs and lows. After having to abort our planned July grand reopening, we finally kicked off again in September and carried on from there, though the rise of Omicron meant that our December events were dogged by drop-outs from quarantining customers and a Russian Roulette as to whether our staff and entertainers would be available each time. New Year’s Eve nearly didn’t happen (and I myself couldn’t be there as I had Covid by then), but we pulled victory from the jaws of defeat—many thanks to Champagne Charlie and the band, and to sound engineer Tim Nugent for stepping into my shoes at the last minute. Now, as we march into 2002, things are so far not much less tough—we’ve just had to cancel our planned January event as once again too many of our crew are unavailable because of Covid. Our apologies to all the guests who were looking forward to that.
But apparently Britain has turned the corner on Covid, and there are rumours that the Plan-B rules, which require us to ask for Covid Passports from all guests, may be lifted from the end of this month. So we can look with optimism to our next event, the St Valentine’s Day special on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th February. Got your tickets yet?
Elise Roth making her Candlelight Club debut with her band at our Christmas party
Happy birthday to us!
Can you believe it? We've been doing this for ten years now. (Technically it's 11 years since we started, but we lost a year to Covid and missed out on our planned party last October.) At our 10th birthday party on 8th and 9th October there was a definite post-lockdown euphoria in the air, made wilder by the manic, boisterous virtuosity of Jack Calloway and his band the Parlophonians. Or, as one guest commented to me after Jack had just taken a solo, "That's clarinet porn, right there." Many thanks to the band, to our host Champagne Charlie, our DJ Baroness Jojo, all our bar, kitchen and waiting staff and all of you lovely guests who came to help us celebrate.
More photos in the album on our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72157719995726128
Limited-time special offer
Looking for something to wear to our big 10th birthday bash next weekend? Purveyors of vintage-inspired clothing Wardrobe Shop are offering Candlelight Club customers a limited-time 10% discount across the whole store: just use the code "candlelight10" when purchasing. But hurry, as the code is only valid until midnight on 8th October. (Note also that delivery to the UK is typically 5–7 days.) See www.wardrobeshop.com
Bask in Hollywood Glamour
If you want vintage inspiration, the British Film Institute are screening a season of Bette Davis movies at their Southbank venue throughout August: Candlelight Clubbers can get 2-for-1 pricing on tickets by using the code BETTED241 when booking online. Among the stars of cinema's Golden Age, Bette was arguably the brightest of them all. She made nearly 100 movies—see how many you can catch this August.
And if Bette's headwear inspires you, Atelier Millinery have partnered with the BFI to offer a 20% discount on hats and millinery supplies through their Etsy shop. Just use the code BETTEBFI20 at checkout (valid until 31st August).
Here we go again…
So it's back to making your own entertainment at home for another four weeks! As you will have heard, on Monday the government announced that the lifting of Covid-related social restrictions would be delayed till 19th July. This is frustrating as it means that sadly our scheduled events on 16th and 17th July now cannot go ahead.
So I'm asking everyone who has already purchased a ticket for either of these dates if they would like to transfer their booking to a later date or if they would just prefer a refund. You should have received an email about this yesterday, but in case it went into your spam, here are the details.
You can see the list of dates that we currently have scheduled, from September to December, on our Upcoming Events page. If you would like to transfer to a later date but none of the currently scheduled dates suits you, you are welcome simply to keep your credit for a future date. Note that transferring is subject to availability (which might be an issue if you have a table or dinner reservation and your chosen date does not have any tables left).
So now our delayed Welcome-Back Party will be scheduled event on 10th and 11th September. See you there!
All dressed up…
Pleased to see that our retro frolics have come to the attention of The Spectator, the oldest weekly magazine in the world, appropriately enough. (The article is about places you can dress up to go to, illustrated, ironically, with a photo of Ruby Deshabillé at our Valentine's party last year—wearing very little indeed.) See https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/unmissable-excuses-to-dress-up.
