‘Closing this iconic London LGBTQ+ venue would leave just a KFC and a phone shop’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. A ‘fighting fundraiser’ has been launched to save one of East London’s most iconic and historic LGBTQ+ venues.

The Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (BGWMC), founded in 1887, was once solely an old-school member’s only boozer where men came to play pool and throw darts. In the last two decades, the bar on Pollard Road has rebranded into one of the capital’s most well-known queer-friendly venues – it was even used to film scenes from Netflix’s Baby Reindeer.

But the future of the community-owned venue is uncertain after its original working men’s club owners revealed last year they intend to sell it. No closure date has been given, though the arts trade union Equity claims the club’s event programming team has until July to vacate.

A crowd funder organised by the Friends of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, a community group of performers, punters and programmers, is hoping to keep the doors of the queer hub open. Campaigners say the bar should be sold to the council and leased back to the community.

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The second option is for Friends of BGWMC to purchase the space, called a community buyout, which involves the group presenting a financial plan to council officials. Olimpia Burchiellaro, on the group’s management committee, says she’s had many a ‘joyful and messy night in the BGWMC’.

‘If you speak to people, one thing they always say is that the BGWMC gave them a chance when no one else would,’ she told Metro. ‘That’s what BGWMC means to me: it’s a place of chances, experimentations, of unexpected encounters, of joyful sin.’.

But Burchiellaro says that, given half of London’s LGBTQ+ venues closed between 2006 and 2022, yet another shuttering gives the idea that ‘these spaces are no longer important’. ‘These spaces are as important as ever, today as they were 20 years ago. They are key to LGBTQ+ people’s wellbeing and culture,’ she said.

‘Efforts like this are the only thing we have in the face of rampant gentrification and redevelopment.’. Campaigners aim to raise £12,000 by April to get the building inspected and evaluated and submit a planning application to Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman.

Should the goal be hit, a new target of £18,000 will be set to ‘develop a robust business plan with financial projections and cover all consultancy and accountancy costs’, the fundraiser says. More than £5,700 has been raised so far. Council officials said in October they would only support using BGWMC as a cultural venue, having already designated it an Asset of Community Value.

Nick Keegan, a variety organiser from Equity, which represents 50,000 performers, told Metro that he worries about what the BGWMC’s closure would do to the 100 gigging performers it employs, many from low-income backgrounds. ‘Protecting spaces like this couldn’t be more important for the future of our nighttime culture in London,’ he said. ‘The jobs and livelihoods at risk are the beating heart of London’s nightlife.’.

Burchiellaro agrees. ‘So many of the performers we now see today on the bigger stages and screens have been through the BGWMC doors. This is no coincidence,’ she said. Working men’s clubs are private social clubs that first opened 150 years ago to help blue-collar workers escape the pull of pubs.

Rather than necking pints, men could attend workshops, lectures and recreational activities. Inside, time almost stood still; women would only be able to swing by most clubs from 2007. Three-quarters of working men’s clubs have closed over the past 50 years, or about 3,000, according to their trade union, the Club and Institute Union. Falling membership, sky-high rent and the smoking ban have been blamed for their decline.

A financially strained Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club came close to closure in 2001 as it struggled with dwindling members and repair costs. The two-storey club began using its upstairs space to host indie gigs, burlesque shows, drag performances and raves to lure in 20-somethings to stay afloat.

Now the venue is home to ‘London’s freshest and freakiest talents’, according to its website, from the Polish drag show SLAV 4 U and the Pokémon-inspired Slaystation to the LGBTQ+ collective Sink the Pink. Jack Cullen, who runs London’s drag queen bookings agency Rent-a-Queen that produces SLAVS 4 U, says whether it be the sticky, carpeted floors or the creaky stage, the BGWMC is a lifeline for performers.

The venue’s programming team ‘have been keystones of the drag community for years’, he told Metro. ‘Places like the BGWMC have a direct positive social impact on the postcode, it’s like honey – they are the reason people wanna live here!’ Cullen said. ‘Take away the fun bits and you’re left with KFC and a phone shop.’.