Bloomsbury Ballroom is a novel venue that brims with potential and purpose, but the quality of your night here all depends on who it’s opening its doors to.

The Venue
Bloomsbury Ballroom lives on the ground floor of Victoria House, just a few minutes walk from Holborn tube. The entrance is adjacent to the leafy Bloomsbury Square and hides itself in a way that avoids attracting whimsical waifs and strays. Suffice to say, it’s not the type of venue that you’ll just stumble upon.

The art deco inspired interior pulses with taste, and immediately eclipses the museum-like apathy of the entrance hall. The stretched sets of seats in the Long Bar pair deep blue leather with wooden kitsch, giving a feel of Parliamentary panache. The Crush Bar offers up swirling patterns on the thick carpet underfoot and modernist, 1930s tables and chairs from which to gaze around. The ballroom itself is a cavernous space with a ceiling that looks down from high above. Its sprung wooden dancefloor is polished and pristine, just waiting for stilettos and brogues – or sadly, more likely plimsolls and pumps - to waltz away on it. Its stretching windows and wooden panels generate a chic formality that serves to inspire very English fantasies of dances and dates 1920s style. The venue is multifarious and can be club, bar or private function hall for parties of 80 to 250 people.

The Atmosphere
Bloomsbury Ballroom holds a club night on some Saturdays, which seems to be an excuse for the upper echelons of London’s nightlife army to attempt to slum it in a suitably suave environment. With London’s subcultures moving so fast, the Klaxon impersonators onstage are even more out of date than the band they seem to mimic. Such a beautiful venue shouldn’t have to stomach the fad-shion of the lumo-clad lame brains whose presence clogs any chance of fun. Can you bring the East End to the West End? On this pretentious school-disco-style showing, it’s a no.

Take the hatchet-haired, skin-tight toggery of Bethnal Green any day because at least there it’s dress up for real, rather than the ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ one night special of Southampton Row. The crowd are a mix of wandering cliques, which tends to make the night a non-starter. People flash eyes up, down, and all around the room with crooked smiles veiling unctuous expressions.

The Music
The constitution of Bloomsbury Ballroom means that the place seems to reject the faddy nature of the music that’s played, like an organ that won’t take to a new host. When a live band plays, the support from the crowd can crumble and the sound sometimes gets lost in the vast space.

The bar is a safer bet, with a mix between experimental adventure and a head nodding, body moving median. However, Bloomsbury Ballroom plays host to a whole range of live music. If you bide your time, there will be something to inspire you and it really can be an awesome venue in which to see a band that has the loyalty of the crowd.

The Drink
The drink is pretty standard at Bloomsbury Ballroom. On some nights you’ll be served your beer straight from the can it came in. It can be frustrating to pay high prices for a drink when there’s not even a snip of an effort to disguise its 80 pence origin. However, on other nights, the Long Bar or Crush Bar can serve up an array of beverages. After all, this is a venue that can hold cocktail soirees along with the best of them.

The Last Word
Visit Bloomsbury Ballroom for live music, or just for drinks at the bar - its decor will make it worth your while. The club aspect struggles, but give it a little time and it might settle. For now, when you leave you half expect to see 4x4s queued up around Bloomsbury Square at 3am, ready for mum to safely whisk you away. Shudder!

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