It’s a powerful colour, red. It connotes passion, anger, romance, violence. In Jane Eyre, the red room was a formative space representing the fears of its young heroine. In Holborn, it’s a place of pleasure and debauchery, giving life to the desires of London’s party goers.

The Venue
A short stroll from Holborn Underground, in the direction of Covent Garden, is a fairly undistinguished building that stands out only thanks to a red hoarding and, at weekends, a queue of glammed-up punters. By week an upmarket strip club, on Friday and Saturday nights The Red Rooms throws its doors open to the masses, with late night revellers of both sexes taking to the floor to indulge their own inner pole dancer.

Bearing the marks of its midweek employment, the club has an atmospheric darkness, with a touch of red light district about the lowlights around the bar and private leather booths replete with velvet drapes, gold tassles and Champagne stands. A narrow corridor, bar to one side and booths to the other leads to the dancefloor, of which the pole is the centrepiece, whilst a suspended steel and glass staircase overhung by an impressive chandelier takes us to the upper floor. With a cluster of seating and a second bar, this is commonly used as the VIP. area but can be booked by non-celebrities, too. Downstairs are the toilets, which merit a mention if only for shattering any illusion of grandeur – they’re in an awful condition and the attendants would be better employed cleaning them than collecting tips for turning on a tap.

The Atmosphere
If the decor is lush, so too are some of the clientele. Others, unfortunately, are less so, mostly due to a mis-application of fashion that accentuates the sordid side of the venue without achieving any of its innate sexiness. There’s no lack of effort though, and if you don’t dress to impress then you run the risk of not getting in. Door policy is the standard over 18s, smart-casual, and large parties are welcome, but this comes with the unfair but not unusual caveat that the bouncers must like the look of you. The good news is if they do, you’ll find the staff here unstintingly polite. Should you overcome this first hurdle, the reason for such selectiveness may soon become apparent, although The Red Rooms boasts a 400 capacity, 300 would be a more comfortable number. With a horde of people intent on enjoying themselves this can lead to a bit of a scrum on the dancefloor (which, mercifully, is air conditioned) but it also makes for a more intimate and vibrant experience than many other West End venues.

The Music
There’s not many places you can still hear Sean Paul blaring from the soundsystem, and whilst in normal circumstances that’s a positive development, the way in which his cheesy ragga hits are rapturously greeted by the crowd makes them unnervingly infectious. With a big emphasis on crowd-pleasing, commercial here means commercial (Justin Timberlake, Ne-Yo, Will.i.am) but with just enough of the niche genres such as grime and bhangra mixed in to keep it interesting. Club classics diverge into funky house and old school in the early hours, before returning to RnB for a 4am finish.

The Drink
Not The Red Rooms’ strong point, with beers (Becks, Carlsberg and Stella, nothing on draught although bottles are always more convenient in cramped conditions anyway) costing around £5 and spirits around about £7, albeit for strong measures. The club can argue all it likes that this is reasonable for the location, but for anyone not earning big salaries, on top of a £10-£15 entry fee it makes for an expensive night. Better is the service, with an abundance of staff meaning the queue for the bar never gets bad enough to block the route to the dancefloor.

The Last Word
The Red Rooms draws a varied crowd who are all up for a good time, and if you appreciate a tabloid-esque brand of glamour and don’t mind a bit of a squeeze then you should enjoy joining them in painting the town red.

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