At first, the area beneath his torso was difficult to discern. Lights coruscated across his bare back, his shoulders swinging from port to starboard. The disco ball failed to illuminate anything beyond that, and my own vision, admittedly, was slightly impaired. Um-ts, um-ts, um-ts – the tempo shifted, the lights redirected. The bare, jockstrap-clad rear of the 70-year-old man before me came into focus.
I am somewhere in north London (probably), some time between midnight and 5am (hopefully), at the tail end (luckily) of a year-long mission to track down the city’s best nightclub. This quest has been gluttonous and lustful, limbo-like and greedy. But mostly it has burned a hole in my wallet and fostered a dependence on fast-acting heartburn relief.
Yet, despite the absurdity of this past year, it is strangely emblematic: if the media is to be believed, Britain’s night-time economy is in recession – its dancefloors largely filled by a few geriatric, scantily clad revellers, while Gen Z frets over climate change and embraces sobriety. Between June 2020 and June 2024, the UK lost almost 480 nightclubs – roughly two every week.
The supposed atrophy of London’s nightlife, however, is far less easily defined than that of its European counterparts. Berlin can always rely on sex parties and 24-hour clubs; Paris, indoor smoking and sultry underground jazz; Rome, half-heartedly pervy men but cheap cocktails. So what, then, is London’s niche that can revive its soul? The city is a patchwork of contradictions: high-concept cocktail bars rubbing shoulders with grimy basements, techno temples beside karaoke dens and a clientele oscillating between exuberant youth and exhausted night owls.
South London tends to showcase the most visually striking – and formidable – crowds, paired with some of the most enjoyable music to dance to, thanks in large part to the area’s Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Most Tube-reliant north Londoners aren’t willing to travel to the likes of Jumbi or Carpet Shop in Peckham or Phonox in Brixton. This means you might just be spared the indignity of paying £12 a glass for orange wine in a “concept space” bar filled with Tabithas and Hamishes.
If you wish to spot a micro-celebrity, Koko in Camden is where west London’s generationally rich and vaguely famous convene. True to form, it operates on the principle that money buys proximity – tickets start at £25 for the plebeians who slip in before 10.30pm, while NW1’s parish-pumps can part with £47 for the coveted “Stage Access + Queue Jump” pass.
Occidental nightlife poses the question: is clubbing dead, or do I just want to be? And after witnessing one too many coked-up bankers swaying off-beat to Robbie Williams’s “Rock DJ” (yes, they still haven’t moved on from that), I’m not sure I need to cross the iron curtain into enemy territory again.
But it’s in London’s north-eastern territories that the true diehard club-sioners congregate. As I veer away from the pensioner’s posterior, I feel smug to have stumbled into one of the city’s off-grid sanctuaries. Entry to this place feels like an earned accolade – so much so that even naming it could get me banned for life. The attendees – Gen Z, millennials and even Second World War veterans – seem unaffected by the so-called lure of new-age wellness. A Tottenham geezer, mid-thirties, with his hair gelled back appears in front of me, his gold tooth glinting. Um-ts, um-ts, um-ts. “What do you think about Nigel Farage?” I bellow. “Sorry love, but you’re not respecting my boundaries. I don’t talk politics in the club,” he gargles, shimmying towards the DJ booth. He stops by the bowl of club-issued chewy sweets, his swinging jaw in need of some stimulus.
The bass reverberates through the concrete ribs of the warehouse and the lights flicker. London’s nightlife is alive precisely because it refuses to be neatly defined. My quest, I hope, is over. As for directions? You’ll have to discover them for yourself. Some things are best earned the jockstrap-clad way.
[Further reading: My night out with the citizens of nowhere]
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This article appears in the 13 Nov 2025 issue of the New Statesman, What Keir won't hear