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The Underground Rebel Bingo Club players wait for their numbers to come up |
Eyes down for a hip night out
Underground Rebel Bingo Club stages midnight sessions in secret at ‘clothes store’
A SECRET is hiding behind the display of classic clothes, shoes and handbags at what appears to be a vintage store in Angel.
The ‘shop’ is in fact a front for a gathering of midnight bingo players – and it’s not for the fainthearted. The Underground Rebel Bingo Club is targeting young, trendy fashionistas by warning: “If you don’t like loud, fun music and shouting, don’t come.”
Rules include: “No boring people, no idiots and no old people.”
Until now, the club night, with DJs, has been meeting in a number of secret locations and has gathered a cult following in Shoreditch. It is now launching a weekly night in Angel, from Friday, September 25.
Organisers will not disclose the exact location, merely saying: “Those in the know will be able to find it by looking out for a secondhand clothes store inside a shopping centre near Angel Tube.”
Secrecy is paramount to all who attend. Charlie Partridge, who helps organise the events run by James Flames and Freddie Fortune, said: “We used to meet in a church hall in Clerkenwell under the cover of holding a neighbourhood watch meeting. But then a vicar moved in upstairs and soon cottoned onto the fact that it wasn’t quite that and we had to move.” In July, 1,500 people converged on a warehouse in east London to take part in the Rebel Bingo World Championships, this time under the cover of holding a health and safety convention.
Mr Partridge said: “What makes it fun is buying into the story of the evening. You’ve got to buy into the reality of the secret organisation. It’s for people who like noise and above all for people who like bingo. It’s a real adrenalin sport. It’s competitive.
“Sometimes you get two people calling bingo at the same time and then there’s a race to the stage. The winner is the first person to hug the MC.”
Prizes, which come from gadget website iwantoneofthose.com, include a motorbike.
Mr Partridge added: “One of the rules is no old people. Everyone’s standing up. It’s a club night. Our two bingo girls have got quite naughty calls. The dress code is weird, flash and dangerous.
“You should wear clothes you don’t mind getting covered in pen as people end up being drawn on.”
Why is the club underground? “What self- respecting member of London’s hip/art/music/
celebrity/media/fashion
scene would admit that they just can’t get enough of a night of bingo?”
The club attracts an eclectic mix of DJs, who in the past have included Nick Grimshaw, Nicky Fatback, Men in Masks, and Laurent Barnard from Gallows.
It has gained the attention of the music scene and was official host of the Kerrang! Awards after-show party.
The Underground Rebel Bingo Club’s Midnight sessions begins on September 25 from 10.30am to 3am. See www.rebelbingo.com for more details. |
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