The Leisure Lounge: a great 1990s club in London

The Leisure Lounge was one of the great mid-1990s London clubs. Located in a former snooker hall at 121 High Holborn, the main room downstairs was basically just one large cavernous space dominated by a huge video screen on one side and two-tiered bench seating on the other - giving a slight school gym feeling. There was a small seating chill out area and bar at one end. According to the DJ magazine 'UK Club Guide' (1995) it had a capacity of 800 with a '22K rig with Amcron amps and custom built speakers'. It stayed open until 6 am initially but I think later opened from 10 pm to 10 am.

The club's opening party was in April 1994 and included the Buzzcocks playing live. Promoter Sean McClusky told the Independent: 'I want a fashionable crowd, but I want to encourage the nutters as well. Punk has energy and colour. It attracts all the characters. All I've done is give them a beautiful club to play in.' (Independent, 6 April 1995).  In its early days there was an exhibition of portrait photographs by Rankin in the chill out area. 

The club continued until at least 1998 (not sure exactly when it closed). My peak time going there would have been 1995, at that time there was Graham Gold's Peach on Friday and the club's own Leisure Lounge night on Saturdays, promoted by Sean McClusky and the late Bernie Schumann. The latter two had previously been involved with Club UK among other adventures and there was a similar 'uplifting house' vibe. 

Later Simon Hobart's gay indie night Popstarz was there too, and legendary drum'n'bass night Metalheadz. Oasis had a party there after playing at the Astoria in 1994.

Flyers below from May/June 1995, seemingly I must have been at that one with John Kelly, Fabio Paras, Tall Paul etc. on 10th June as I put a cross by it! Also definitely went to the one on 25 May 1995 with Lisa Louds, Tony de Vit etc.  'Join the International Disco Jetset' says one flyer, and we did. Glammed up beautiful people dancing to beautiful music, or so it felt. Maybe not so much on the way home afterward.

Note too the Red Bull sponsorship. I remember the first time I tried one of these energy drinks was in the queue at Leisure Lounge where they were handing them out as part of a promotion.  The drink had started out in Austria in 1987 but wasn't launched in UK until 1994/95 when for a while people going out at the weekend were largely replacing their alcohol consumption with other recreational substances.

Update:

John Eden has mentioned in a comment that he went to a Jah Shaka 'African Liberation Day Special' at the Leisure Lounge in May 2001, so the club was still open then. In fact checking through the Muzik magazine listings I can see that they still included the Leisure Lounge in their list of London clubs as late as March 2002, but not by June 2002 so assume it closed around that time.

Muzik magazine London club listings March 2002

See previously:

Club UK: Love, ecstasy and crime

Speed and other London clubs, i-D 1995

Muzik Magazine 1995 club listings

1995 London Clubs

From the 'Capital Guide: London for Londoners' (Boxtree publications, 1995), published in association with the London Transport Museum, Elaine Gallagher writes a guide to London clubs. Quite a few of those mentioned sometime haunts of mine at one time or other.

Flipside at Iceni in White Horse Street W1 was very much on an acid jazz tip when I went there in 1993, with Young Disciples DJs.  Were there 'board games and a chill out area complete with tarot reader'? Well yes I recorded in my diary that there was Risk and Buckeroo, but missed the tarot.

I loved the Leisure Lounge in Holborn, promoted by Sean McClusky, 'a converted former snooker hall, now boasting 2 dance floors' and according to this 'offers raucous punk, funk,  and hip hop for fashion victims with lots of fun fur and blue hair'.  Second half of sentence vaguely correct, though more fashion slayers than victims. But the music when I went was always house, house and a bit more house.

McClusky also promoted Club UK (which I've written about before) and fellow South London club Minstry of Sound inevitably gets a mention. Turnmills in Farringdon obviously a legendary 90s venue, mainly went to Gallery on Fridays, also Eurobeat 2000 but famous for gay nights FF and Trade.

Mambo Inn at Loughborough Hotel in Brixton  - 'world music with a little lambada and merengue thrown in', not to mention African sounds - was a big night for me a few years before.

Subterania, under the Westway in Ladbroke Grove. Never went clubbing there as such, but did see Lush and The Chills (from New Zealand) at an indie gig which google shows me was on October 11 1989. Once went to the Tearooms des Artistes in Wandsworth, ambient vibes.

See also other listings posts:

London Gay Disco 1972

NME Guide to Rock & Roll London (1978): Disco

NME Guide to Rock & Roll London (1978): Gay clubs

NME Guide to Rock & Roll London (1978): Reggae

London Club Listings 1982 - Time Out

Clubbing in London i-D listings, 1984

Clubbing in Sheffield i-D listings, 1984

Clubbing in Manchester listings, 1984

Clubbing in Luton, 1984

1987: Dancing in Brixton and beyond

1988 London club listings: 'do not play acid'

The Face London Club listings, March 1989

Speed and other London clubs, i-D 1995

Muzik Magazine 1995 club listings