Alternative Nightlife

Chopin Scores is no longer at Victory. See www.aphrodisiacslondon.com for further information

Have you heard? There’s a new venue in town. Londoners are – quite rightly – hard to impress. But unless you’ve spent time working on Hollywood film sets, you won’t have seen anything like Victory. And when you do? The safe money says that first word you’ll utter is a slack-jawed ‘wow’.

‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,’ agrees Kat Pearson, who heads the club’s marketing agency with partner Mark Hull and has helped put the entertainment together. ‘I was expecting something special because the owner was responsible for [defunct members’ bar] Hedges & Butler, but nothing prepared me for that.’
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Like what, exactly? Descend the stairs – the classical musicians who herald your entrance are a nice touch – and step into a Victorian high street. Low bay windows hide rooms perfect for secret moments; Victorian street lamps line the ‘street’ which ends at the library full of German chemistry books and antique chairs.

‘I wanted to make somewhere that was a little bit Las Vegas, a little bit Studio 54, somewhere with more rock ’n’ roll.’ So says Youcef Aden, Victory’s art director whose past lies in film and fashion (he designed the costumes on ‘Dynasty’, for starters). ‘I want to recreate the old days in the 1980s and ’90s where people didn’t care. Now it’s too cliquish. I want a place where if you have money or you don’t, you can enjoy yourself.’

It would be difficult not to enjoy yourself at Chopin Scores, Victory's weekly Friday-night affair. Street performers cherry-picked from Covent Garden work the club, burlesque performers come and go, DJ Wheelie Bag rustles through his killer ska and rockabilly collection.

The ground floor, late-night restaurant is due for completion in two weeks, and there are plans to open a young designers’ market in the daytime. Still, while money may not matter to Aden, this comes very much at West End-prices . It’s £20 to get through the door on Friday night
(or £15 in advance), and a bottle of house bubbly is an eye-popping £75. It’s hard to see edgy and skint Dalston types using Victory as a hangout, but it will undoubtedly go down a storm with fans of glamorous club nights such as Aphrodisiacs or Pushca.

‘This is a really polished production,’ says Pearson, who is also behind the Aphrodisiacs parties. ‘As people who have ever been to one of our events will know! We will have anything up to 20 performers per night, and it turns into a club with cool deep house after midnight. A lot of performance clubs wouldn’t dream of playing dance music. We want people to feel like they’ve been transported into another world entirely, and that’s what’s so great about having a dressing-up box. People can wear just a few accessories or change into a full-on costume. I want people to wake up the next morning and think: Wow, where was I last night?’

Chopin Scores is this Friday and Aphrodisiacs is March 15 at Victory, 55 New Oxford St, WC1.