So it has finally come, the end of Tiger Tiger — the club in Piccadilly known for... what? The reek of Lynx, the glueish floor, and for providing one of the final remaining refuges for the salesmen in the no-spray-no-lay line of work. Tiger Tiger, a byword for last resort. Twenty-six years of wince-inducing tequila shots, of nights spent blurrily on a dance floor the colour and shape of an unfurled Rubik’s Cube. Two decades of doormen all suffering the exact same attitude problem. And yet still, it’s a shame to see it go.
The news broke yesterday, with plans revealed to turn the building into a hotel. A hotel? Is London really short of those?
The loss of Tiger Tiger marks the end of another chapter in the history of London’s nightlife. While few can really have been calling out for its early-2000s shtick — it is no surprise the Vodka Revs and Walkabout groups are shadows of what they were — its closure speaks to a broader trend: the slow extinction of affordable late-night venues in the heart of the city.
As these places slowly fade away, so too do the opportunities for a different kind of night out — the coming-of-age kind, where entrance fees aren’t prohibitive and drinks don’t cost the earth or take an age to arrive. These aren’t the venues with a 15-minute wait for an artfully-stirred Old Fashioned; they serve what can politely be called cheap and cheerful mixes, those that are pre-made, full of sugar, and usually suspiciously neon. They are for nights that don’t take themselves too seriously. They are for the students, the first-timers in town, and those who don’t want to wake up the morning after panicking about having dipped into the overdraft. A night like this, drinking these drinks, was once a rite of passage.
Tiger Tiger was not somewhere I went; it wasn’t my scene. But walking past, I would see it typically heaved with those who did fancy it, who did want what it offered. What is left for them now? The centre of town increasingly feels like it’s reserved for the well-off, or those with an expense account to plunder. For everyone else? They’re being pushed to the sidelines. The best bars, clubs and restaurants are places with a mix among those who comes: those spots where everyone is of the same ilk, works in the same sort of places, who holidays on the same islands, rarely have much in the way of atmosphere. It is only when the crowd is the blended sort that a feeling of fun begins to be conjured.
The revival of Tiger Tiger is not needed; it is not really wanted. But the loss of venues of its kind is a loss of the egalitarian spirit that once defined London at its best. Its closure is symbolic of a city that does not seem to want its young to let loose unless they’re willing to fork out a minor fortune and dress to the nines. It’s not such a shock that young people are boozy eschewing evenings when they have so few opportunities to embrace them. I do not mourn Tiger Tiger, but I am getting close to mourning for a city that increasingly looks like it’s forgotten how to have fun.
