OUCH-O CLUB
From drug-taking, sex trysts in toilets & pop icons being thrown out – how Groucho Club became London’s most debauched
An upstairs room was given a special nickname thanks to the alleged availability of cocaine
FOR decades The Groucho Club was the secret haunt where the rich and famous engaged in legendary acts of debauchery.
The private venue in the centre of London’s Soho was the place where you may have seen supermodel Kate Moss leaving at seven o’clock in the morning.
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You may have dodged members riding bikes through the lounge or find Blur bassist Alex James sleeping under the snooker table.
Over the years, regulars included singers Robbie Williams, Freddie Mercury, Liam Gallagher, Lily Allen, her dad Keith, Mighty Boosh funnyman Noel Fielding and model Cara Delevingne.
In the main lounge, mobile phones are banned, allowing members to relax without their brawls, clinches or drunken exploits being recorded.
There were few rules, and the ones that did exist — particularly no drugs — were often broken.
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An upstairs room was nicknamed the Peruvian Procurement Department for the alleged availability of cocaine.
But a letter is circulating claiming that the 39-year-old institution is “almost dead” due to high prices and a “less fun” attitude.
Many colourful members have been kicked out, and beloved manager Bernie Katz died in suspicious circumstances after being “retired” in 2017.
PR man Mark Borkowski, a member since the Groucho opened in 1985, thinks the club can no longer accept the kind of hedonism witnessed in its Nineties and Noughties heyday.
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He says: “I have seen some extraordinary sights, but times have changed.
“You could not in any shape or form get away with the behaviour of a leading club in this day and age without being shut down.”
Stars at the Groucho
When The Groucho Club opened, it was a revolutionary antidote to the stuffy, male-dominated private members’ clubs where patrons were expected to wear ties.
It was named after American comic Groucho Marx, who once joked: “I don’t want to belong to any club which will accept me as a member.”
Actor Stephen Fry — a regular at the establishment — drew up four rules: No phones, no drugs, no string vests and please leave quietly.
Women were welcome, with comic Helen Lederer one of the founding members, while actress Anna Friel and singer Courtney Love later partied there in the 2010s.
It was relatively cheap and did not ask questions about how much time anyone was spending there, with Mark admitting to “virtually living at the club” in its early days.
In the Nineties, what had started out as a hangout for media and literary types became a byword for Britpop and Young British Artist hedonism.
Rival rock bands Blur and Oasis were often spotted falling out of the club, while artists Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst were mainstays.
Alex James joked that he had snoozed under the snooker table “for about a week” and Liam Gallagher was reportedly thrown out for smashing a window.
Legend has it that Hirst put all of his £20,000 Turner Prize money behind the bar in 1995 for other members to enjoy.
On another occasion Mark was on the wrong end of the modern art wildman, who set light to the publicist’s chest.
Mark recalls: “It was my party trick. I used to be able to control it myself. But he ripped off my shirt, threw a dram of whiskey on it and set fire to it, and the whole thing went up.
“I ended up having to go to hospital with significant pain. Terrible smell.”
‘Damien set fire to whiskey on my shirt’
Other drinkers remembered injuries sustained after losing their inhibitions.
Comic actor Rowland Rivron told how drinkers would race mountain bikes in the club after last orders.
He took it one step further by attempting to ride down the stairs, resulting in a broken hand.
He said: “I flew clean over the handlebars at some considerable speed. The waiters said afterwards that it would have been less painful for me if the bar stools had been removed.“
Everyone wanted to be there. U2’s Bono sang “happy Christmas” to former US president Bill Clinton, and young royals were known to visit.
The Groucho became so famous that it could afford, reportedly, to turn away Oscar-winner Al Pacino and ask pop star Madonna to leave.
With a blind eye being turned to bizarre antics, it took a lot to be banned.
In 2007, Alan Davies went too far when CCTV cameras recorded the Jonathan Creek actor biting a homeless man’s ear during a brawl outside the club.
Davies said: “I lost it a bit and we had something of a tussle.”
Author Toby Young also managed to get on the wrong side of the owners.
Legend had it that he’d lost his membership after being caught in a romantic clinch with a Princess Diana lookalike in the lavatory.
But according to Toby he was banned for breaking the club’s code of silence on drug use.
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In his book How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, which was made into a movie starring Simon Pegg, he told how two famous members had asked him to “procure” cocaine.
Toby says: “I joked that there was so much cocaine flying around in the club in the mid-Nineties that if a terrorist posted some anthrax through the letterbox in a white envelope it would be up someone’s nose within 30 seconds.”
Open drug use was not appreciated by everyone.
In 2016, 14 members wrote an open letter to the owners alleging that they had witnessed people snorting cocaine by the sinks in the bathroom.
If those stories were correct, it put the venue’s licence at risk.
A year later the club’s manager Bernie, who was nicknamed the Prince of Soho, retired.
Only 5ft tall, he was appreciated by older Groucho clientele for his kindness, with him pushing an inebriated member home in a wheelchair.
But friends told how Bernie had a serious drug addiction and mounting debts with Eastern European gangs.
Six months after leaving his job — reluctantly, according to pals — he died aged 49 in an apparent suicide.
But the coroner recorded an open verdict and podcaster Mark Edmonds claimed: “There were rumours flying around that the Albanians had threatened to make an appearance at the Groucho and start smashing the place up.”
There were also controversies around some of its male members, including comedian Russell Brand and actor Kevin Spacey.
Both men were accused of making unwanted advances.
‘It needs to be relevant to a new generation’
Spacey went to the Groucho last year to celebrate being cleared of sexual assault, while Brand denies the allegations made against him in a Channel 4 documentary.
Two years ago the Groucho was bought by its fourth owners, Iwan and Manuela Wirth, for £40million.
They have brought in top chef Mark Hix and are said to be seeking a younger clientele.
Older members have complained about the millennials and the Generation Z crowd using the club as a workspace rather than a place to relax.
Laptops are supposed to be closed by 6pm and mobile phones should not be used in the main drinking area.
But the anonymous letter complained about an increasingly “corporate” atmosphere in the once-bohemian haunt.
A source says the new owners are putting on more events for big firms.
Since Covid, fewer people are going to private members’ clubs because more of them are working at home.
But there is still a long waiting list to join the Groucho, and Mark does not think it is going to shut. In fact, a second one is planned for Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
Mark reckons it is wrong for “boomers” like him to whinge too much about the changes.
He says: “It is vital too many of the old members do not go bleating about the new days.
“It is for a new generation to create their own memories.
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“It needs to be made relevant to a new generation that aren’t party animals like they were in the Eighties and Nineties.
“I wouldn’t write any obituaries for the Groucho.”