Back in the limelight
FAMOUS EIGHTIES CLUB WILL REOPEN AS AN ARTS VENUE AND BAR
A FORMER Welsh chapel-turnednightclub in London’s West End is to be revived as a performing arts centre and bar.
The former Limelight Club, known for being a haunt of Eighties hitmakers Duran Duran and Boy George, was once a famous haunt on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Before that, the 19th-century GradeII listed building was a Presbyterian church for inner London’s Welsh community.
In the years since Limelight closed down the building became a squat, then a Walkabout bar, before being transformed into a new performance centre.
After years of planning and development, its anonymous landlord has won approval to upscale the venue into a major performance space, bar and restaurant amid the West End’s arts scene, run by arts charity Stone Nest, which currently occupies the former church.
On Thursday, October 4 Westmin- ster City Council’s licensing subcommittee granted Stone Nest’s landlord’s application to transform the church into a performance venue and basement bar.
Stone Nest told the hearing it wanted it to be a unique space on the West End for performers to develop their work, as well as to put on shows.
Once the redevelopment has been completed, it is hoped the bar and restaurant will serve audiences and the general public, proving a sustainable income stream to support its charitable activities, a Stone Nest representative said. Not everyone was supportive of the chapel’s latest transformation.
“It was a church previously and should remain as a church to save people,” one local resident wrote to the licensing sub committee.
Another, who recalled Limelight’s heyday, was concerned the venue would cause crowds to spill out into busy Charing Cross Road and cause noise to flats in the area.
However, the sub committee heard Stone Nest would not be running a drinking-led venue, and would work with authorities on managing crowds.