Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (BGWMC) exploring community ownership

The ‘Friends of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club’ collective is being supported by the people behind the successful Sister Midnight campaign

The community that came together to save the BGWMC this summer is hoping it will be able to stop the venue from closing down for good through shared ownership – or else they say the city’s whole drag and cabaret scene is at risk.

In July, the owners of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (BGWMC) announced their intention to sell the venue at the earliest opportunity, leaving many self-employed drag artists and cabaret acts who relied on the club as a form of regular income struggling to make ends meet.

For the past 20 years, the venue has supported and built the careers of many drag and cabaret performers who are able to experiment with their work in a space that is safe and LGBTQ+ friendly.

When ShayShay first moved to London from the US, they instantly fell in love with the venue and went from attending events to performing as a drag artist twice a week and hosting their own shows there. ‘Back in the day when I was coming up, it was one of my main sources of both income and work connection, I know that’s a case for a lot of people still,’ ShayShay said.

‘Once I met a few fellow queer people, they suggested the real queer scene isn’t in Soho, it’s in East London, it’s in Bethnal Green, it’s in Dalston.’ Performing at the venue allowed ShayShay to explore their gender and identity and helped to establish their career.

ShayShay has since moved on to producing events and co-founded The Bitten Peach, a pan-Asian cabaret collective which has performed at the venue before. They said the sudden closure of the venue sent the community ‘through a loop’ and many performers have struggled to secure work as venues schedule events far in advance.

They added: ‘We have less and less cabaret venues in general in London, the number has dwindled over the last decade or more. There are just less and less places. We have done events at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and the BGWMC and now we don’t do events at either of those venues.

‘We are struggling to figure out where we can do an event of this size, in a venue that isn’t going to charge us an arm and a leg to use, and in a place that wants to support us and we want to support them, and a place where our queer audience will feel safe, it’s staggeringly difficult to locate.’

A petition launched by the performing arts and entertainment trade union, Equity, to save the venue and support the careers of drag and cabaret performers at BGWMC has now surpassed over 12,000 signatures. The community quickly acted and with the support of Equity, an emergency rally was held outside the venue, which is located in a Grade-II listed building on Pollard Row.

After the rally was held the Friends of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, a newly-formed cooperative made up of 39 people from the local area, successfully submitted an application to Tower Hamlets Council to register the venue as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), meaning the community has a chance to bid on the building if it ends up going on the market.

Now the council has designated the venue as an ACV, the group is in the process of creating a fundraiser to help secure the future of the venue, which is due to launch over the coming weeks. The group is being supported by Principle Six and the Community Shares Company, who helped with the very successful Sister Midnight campaign, a music venue which is the first-ever community-owned space in Lewisham.

Nick Keegan, a variety organiser at Equity, said: ‘With the club shut, there are up to 100 performers a week missing out on work, including self-employed cabaret and drag performers. We’re helping the campaign but it has to be a community-led campaign, a community purchase is a mammoth task, it’s a huge piece of fundraising so we’ll support in any way as we can as a union.’

Between 2006 and 2022, the number of LGBTQ+ venues in London has dropped from 125 to 50, according to data from the Greater London Authority. Separate data from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) found that 3,011 night-time businesses closed in London between March 2020 and December 2023, which is the fastest decline anywhere in the country.

Nick said: ‘Venues like this are a pillar for the community but also for performers and Equity members as a union. For cabaret and drag performers, the career is so precarious and breaking into the career can be so expensive and difficult. This venue has represented a community space that allows performers to develop into the larger, more polished professionals that we have in our industry.

‘Our priority – whatever happens next – is to allow our members to go back to work as soon as possible.’ The council did not comment on the campaign.

If you liked this read ‘Whoretographer’ Poppy Pray snaps the golden years of the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club