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.