The Bloomsbury Ballroom
Bloomsbury Square
London WC1B 4DA
Saturday 4th December 2010
8pm-2am
The Chap’s legendary “Night of a Thousand Waistcoats” returned for its second incarnation after last year’s tenth anniversary party. Moving the location to the much larger and grander Bloomsbury Ballroom, London’s only remaining original Art-deco ballroom, this year’s extravaganza set the precedent for an annual Chap Ball, each party striving to be even more spectacular than the last.
Guests numbered around 800, dressed in their finest vintage threads, reflecting a broad dress code that went from 1890s decadence to 1940s spiv.
The extremely louche host was Nickolas Grace, the actor who played Anthony Blanche in the original Brideshead Revisited, who was “charming thwough the gwille” for the entire evening. In the Grand Ballroom the bill was topped by Top Shelf Jazz, with Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer exclusively previewing his brand-new longplayer, “I Say!”, and the Gentleman Juggler.
The cocktail bar played host to the Chap’s October cover star, Viv the Spiv, who staged Escalado table-top horseracing, and Bell the Butler, who delivered messages typed by secretary Miss Siggs among guests too shy to approach each other in person.
Thanks to our partners Bourne & Hollingsworth, who provided a plethora of delicious cocktails, including the popular “Chap Cocktail”, whose consumption in vast quantities led to extremely abandoned dancing later in the evening.
Photograph: Clayton Hartley.
