The Underground Rebel Bingo Club

19 Dec 2008

We had some trouble finding the Underground Rebel Bingo Club. ‘What the bejesus is Rebel Underground Bingo?’ I hear you squawk. Well read on my friends, and prepare to discover one of London’s best kept secrets.

We had trouble finding the night because it is such a covert operation. Based on the premise that Oliver Cromwell outlawed London’s only bingo club in 1657, driving its members underground, RUB is a mysterious affair. So we were wandering around amidst the cool buzz of Exmouth market for almost 15 minutes, until a likely looking know-all spilled the beans that it was being held in the church.

We’d already walked past the church you see, and hadn’t even considered it might be being held there because of the huge ‘Christmas card sale’ banners hanging from its front gates. We walked up to the entrance to the unlikely looking event room at the side of the church (the kind where you can buy homemade cake and a VHS for 50p at weekends) and knocked on the door. A lithe young vixen with glittering eyes and a fur hat answered the door.

‘Are you here for the, ahem, Christmas card sale?’ she hissed accusingly.
‘Yes,’ came our reply.
‘Come through.’

And so we were ushered into the room where tables full of pleasure seekers were sipping on wine and making merry. We gazed around us in wonderment at the cabaret-cum-music hall scene and made our way to the bar, where we picked up some drinks and bingo cards from a man with impressive sideburns wearing a very nice caftan. As there were no more tables to be had we squeezed our way onto one with a group of very pleasant Americans who had adopted London as home many years back.

And so the games commenced, and the witty compere explained the rules of the underground, yet tongue-in-cheek operation. Assisted by two glamour-puss assistants in rather risqué outfits, with even risqué-er tongues – ‘come on my tits, sixty six’ – the bingo began. The game was split into rounds, the first two of which were playing for prizes from I Want One Of Those – and included such sought after gadgets as tattoo sleeves, illuminated umbrellas and limbo strings.

The further into the game we got, the bigger the prizes, a very lucky girl on our table winning a giant polar bear and, the most envied prize of the night, an iPod speaker. Anyone who got the right numbers and called bingo was then taken onto the stage and introduced while their cards were checked, which made for increasingly amusing viewing, the drunker everyone got.

The third and final round was for cash prizes up to a £100 pounds, and by this point everyone was in such high spirits that when the game ended and the prizes were all gone, the night turned into a disco, and Mexican waves broke out around the hall.

I could tell you about many more things that happened, like nearly getting busted by the bingo police, and other such debauchery, but I don’t want to spoil it for you, because if there’s one thing you should do in London right now, it’s go and play Rebel Bingo.

The Underground Rebel Bingo Club – December 19 and 20, 2008
The Mission Room
26 Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QE

Tel: 0207 278 0816