Loading ...I say chaps, I’m smashed!
Kensington Roof Gardens; a club for the rich, rampant and, on occasion, royal. A club where you can drown your sorrows (at a price) whilst perched in an imitation Moorish Garden. A club owned by Richard Branson, but where virgins are, at a guess, very few.
It was a friend’s birthday on a Saturday evening, and as I walked into the club I knew it would be a night to remember. The place oozed with wealth. Valentino dresses and Armani blazers paraded up and down the dance floor. It was an occasion where, despite my valiant efforts (nice shirt and jeans) I felt considerably underdressed. A feeling possibly enhanced by the knowledge I was wearing underwear from Primark.
Student nights out unpretentiously embrace the dirty, alcohol bloated underbelly of British clubbing. But here, if anywhere, I was expecting a truly more refined evening. As it happens, all the Louis Vuitton handbags and expensive shrubbery in Kensington couldn’t disguise the fact that it wasn’t actually much different.
There was one notable contrast – the usual alcoholic companions are suddenly out of reach. As I approached the bartender he stood haughtily, revelling in his status, dazzling bottles arrayed behind him. He may have even been a student once, but here he was a demi-god, dictating the flow of the precious substance and stating prices as if declaring your death sentence. As I weighed up the least expensive possibilities he raised a condescending eyebrow as if daring me to order an orange juice or, God forbid, a free glass of tap water! Drunkenness was impossible, but only it seemed, for me.
As is the case at every club, at the Roof Gardens tears and tantrums were a plenty, and one impeccably dressed girl was truly letting loose. She blurted out her tale accompanied by wild chopping motions, as if planning to display her martial arts prowess by chopping in half her friend’s martini glass. The consoling friend, so tanned that she became camouflaged on a leather sofa, made semi-sympathetic ‘mmms’ and ‘ahhhs’ as her eyes glazed over. Her rhythmically pursing lips, in and out with every ‘mmm’, was the only clue that she wasn’t a misplaced sculpture of some Z-list celebrity from Madame Tussauds. Despite the champagne, things just hadn’t turned out as planned. The emotional girl may have started the rant looking like Kate Moss but had finished looking like Amy Winehouse, and quite understandably just wanted to go home.
The climax of the evening offered a twist on the usual night out. A minor offence leads to a brawl, but here the chief witness was big, black and bulky – with three legs.
The grand piano stood majestically in the corner, as if daring the drunken human specimens to crash into one of its solid beech legs. As the fight escalated, the bouncers (who had most likely been off eating caviar in the corner) gradually lurched into action. But the fists continued to fly. The bouncers in Kensington, perhaps particularly touched by the sounds of Beethoven and Bach, hastily formed a protective cordon round the prized instrument like worried gentle giants – unconcerned as the fight raged on.
As I watched the undignified tangle of kicking legs, a couple of over-excited war studies students noted that this was “a jolly hostile environment for a one night stand.” They continued their pseudo-militarized talk about sex, undoubtedly fuelled by a few too many gin and tonics, but they were right. The sophisticated atmosphere, designer clothes and self-assured smiles had been shown to be a fragile façade. Tears, silliness and drunken hostility bubbled irresistibly under the surface as at every other club. The best thing about the Kensington Roof Gardens? The grand piano. Which, to the bouncer’s relief, lived to fight another day.
