To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the closure of London’s most infamous arts establishment, the Colony Room Club in Soho, former member Darren Coffield has written the authorised history of this notorious drinking den. It’s a hair-raising romp through the underbelly of the post-war scene: during its sixty-year history, more romances, more deaths, more horrors and more sex scandals took place in the Colony than anywhere else.In the regimented and repressed atmosphere of post-war London,…
The history of Soho’s Colony Room Club – a gathering place of Bohemians, artists, and free thinkers – established in 1948 by the redoubtable Muriel Belcher and closed in 2008. In that time it was home to a rollcall of Britain’s alternative art establishment, and as with many of London’s private clubs the source of many far-fetched tales. I’ve had a fascination with the place ever since hearing about it, despite the fact there’s no way in hell I’d have ever been a member (the main criteria for membership appears to have been that you weren’t boring).