At the Ritzy. London’s proudest disappointment.

Liam stood at the edge of the dancefloor, holding an empty pint glass tight to his chest, watching drunk bodies sway to a Chaka Khan track as if they were wading upstream through slow‑moving treacle. Up in a suspended booth above the dancefloor, the DJ vanished into another rolling cloud from the smoke machine. Half-hidden in the haze, he kept shouting over the track, his voice booming through the monitors: ‘To all you lovely ladies, this one’s for you!’ Jesus, his lines were so cheesy they could’ve come with crackers.

It was shite. That’s why it was called the ‘Shitzy.’ Still, it was Saturday night in the long, charged summer of ’89, and this was what was expected of the working‑class wounded of a Tory battlefield. You orbited the same flickering lights, trapped in the same tired circle, pretending it was enough to be this disillusioned with what was being offered.

Ricky appeared at Liam’s elbow, two fresh lagers slopping over his hands. He was already three sheets to the wind, shirt half-untucked and soaked with sweat, the fringe of that stupid curtains’ haircut flopping into his eyes. 

‘You look like someone’s pissed in your pint,’ he said, as he attempted to blow the fringe from his face. 

‘Just thinking,’ Liam replied, taking the pint.

‘That’s a bit dangerous.’ Ricky grinned. ‘Where's everyone else?’

Liam nodded at the dancefloor. Matt was right in the middle, shirt off and tied round his waist, elbows everywhere, dancing like he was trying to knock out invisible opponents. The lad didn’t have a lower gear. Ollie stood next to him, barely moving, just doing his usual gentle-soul thing, watching the chaos like it was a nature documentary. The girls were off to the side: Sally in her black mini-dress and matching black stilettos, laughing at something, and Kitty beside her, absolutely not laughing and looking knackered under the sweeping disco lights, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding herself together. 

‘Matt is going to get himself chucked out again,’ Ricky observed.

‘Probably.’

They’d been coming here since they were sixteen, flashing fake IDs that wouldn’t have fooled a toddler, but the bouncers didn’t care as long as you bought drinks. But no mistaking, Ritzy’s was a dive, with its sticky floors that clung to your shoes, walls that clung to your clothes, spirits watered down to nothing, and a haze of violence hanging in the air along with the reek of Paco Rabanne. But it was their dive. Friday and Saturday nights, without fail, you get pissed, maybe pull, grab a greasy kebab from Chico’s, then go home. Repeat this until you got married or died, whichever came first.

Suddenly, a burst of breaking glass went off near the bar, like someone had lobbed a grenade into the optics. Liam spun round just in time to see Matt in the middle of it, his chest out, arms up, squaring off with some bloke in a white denim jacket and matching white Winkle Pickers.

Liam nudged Ricky. ‘Shall we go and help?’

Ricky didn’t even look up from his drink. ‘Nah. He’s fine.’

The bouncers were cutting through the crowd like hungry sharks, their aggro beacons flashing as they moved in. It was a shove. A shout. Matt’s single, heroic, completely useless swing at thin air. Then the whole thing fizzled out like a cheap firework on damp grass. The pair were dragged toward the exit doors, still shouting the usual bravado nonsense. Matt was in his element.

‘See. Told ya he’d get chucked out again — didn’t I.’

 Half a minute later the music was back to full blast, and everyone was dancing again. DJ Cheesy Crackers couldn’t resist dropping an appropriate tune. 

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Those cats were fast as lightning.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Liam was twenty-four, and the routine was already choking him. 

‘I’m going for a whizz,’ he said, handing his pint back to Ricky.

The toilets were tucked down a narrow corridor that smelled of piss and bleach, the kind of scent that clung to your clothes. THATCHER OUT was scrawled across one wall, and a yellow smiley face glowed faintly on the opposite side. The gents’ door was held slightly ajar by a fire extinguisher. Inside, three blokes in track jackets and baggy jeans huddled by the sinks, whispering. They spotted Liam and shut up as if he’d walked in on a secret meeting.

He pushed into a cubicle, locked the door, and stood there for a moment in the relative quiet. Through the thin walls he heard the DJ talking over the dying seconds of Kung-Fu Fighting. Without missing a beat, the DJ declared, ‘This is a night to remember!’ and slammed straight into Shalamar’s A Night to Remember, as if he’d been waiting all night to make the joke.

Liam’s breathing filled his ears, too loud, too close. The lager dragged at the pit of his stomach; the alcohol fog rolled in again, smothering his thoughts under a damp, heavy blanket called panic. Liam couldn’t escape that this was his life. Working at the family garage all week, drowning in oil and his dad’s constant griping, then this, the same tired repetitive weekends. He could have a holiday if he saved, which he never could. And a girlfriend if he got his act together, which he never would.

Then the panic hit. There was no warning, no mercy, the anxiety was real. He felt the rush come up his spine and sweep over his head. He went clammy and thought he might collapse. His chest heaved. The cubicle walls crept in closer. He gripped the cistern as if it were the only solid thing left. Slowly he started forcing breath into his lungs. Not here. Not now. He thought to himself.

After a few minutes, the panic ebbed away. It always did. Liam flushed the toilet anyway, unlocked the door, and walked out like nothing had happened. The three blokes were still there. One of them, tall, shoulder-length hair, with a gold tooth catching the light, was looking straight at him. 

‘You alright, mate?’ the bloke asked.

‘Yeah. Sound.’

‘You look a bit pale, like you’ve just seen a ghost in the shitter.’

Liam forced a laugh. ‘Nah, just the state of this place.’

The bloke smiled: an unusually friendly gesture for Ritzy’s. ‘First time here, is it?’

‘Nah, been coming for years. Unfortunately.’

‘Bummer, really?’ He exchanged a look with his mates. ‘You ever been to a proper party?’

‘What… like jelly and ice cream and spin-the-bottle?’ Liam had no idea what the bloke meant. He was being serious.

The three blokes smirked, eyes glinting as they swapped knowing looks.

‘Nah, mate. I mean a rave.’

The word hung there. Liam had heard of raves, everyone had, but they still felt like something that happened to other people in other places. Still underground, still whispered about. The newspapers had been full of it: illegal parties in warehouses and fields, half a dozen coppers trying to shut down thousands of ravers. Acid house. Smiley faces. Musical madness.

‘Can’t say I have,’ Liam said.

The bloke reached into his jacket and pulled out a small plastic bag. Inside were three white tablets.

Liam’s heart skipped. ‘What’s that?’

‘Ecstasy. E — Doves. Bumbles, call it what you like. It makes you feel like you're made of love and light brother. It will change everything.’ He held the bag lightly, not pushing it, just letting it dangle between them. ‘Forty quid for the Three. Or I'll give you one for fifteen if you want to fly solo tonight.’

Liam should have said no. Should have walked away. He wasn’t into that stuff, none of them were, really, beyond the odd bit of puff and whizz. Pills were serious. Pills were trouble. Pills were the sort of thing that landed you on Crimewatch, as his dad liked to remind him. But something in Liam, that same tight, restless feeling from the cubicle pushed the word yes out of his mouth before he could stop it.

‘Yeah, fuck it. ‘I'll take one,’ Liam blurted out, unable to hold back the words. ‘Fifteen for one, yeah?’

The bloke nodded, his fingers disappearing into the tiny plastic bag. His mate shifted to stand guard by the main toilet door.

Liam scraped together a crumpled tenner and a five from his pockets and handed them over. The bloke pocketed the cash without blinking and passed him a single pill. It was tiny, almost delicate, a little dove stamped into one side. 

‘Take it with water,’ the bloke said. ‘Give it thirty minutes or so. And then… whoosh!’

‘Whoosh?’

‘Yeah. Just enjoy it mate. People always remember their first pill.’

Liam stood in the corridor outside the toilets for a long moment, the pill clenched in his fist. His heart hammered. This was stupid. This was insane. He should bin it, go back to Ricky, finish his pint, get a greasy kebab, and go home. But instead, he went to the bar, bought a bottle of water, and swallowed the pill in one gulp. Then he rejoined his mates, picked up his pint, and waited.

For the first thirty minutes, nothing really happened

Liam stood quietly next to Ricky at the edge of the dance floor, lager in hand, watching some young girls dance around to Ride on Time. The DJ was still talking too much. The lights scattering off the mirror ball were bright enough to make him squint. Nothing had changed, not really, but something in the room was beginning to tilt, and he couldn’t explain why. 

‘You’re fucking quiet,’ Ricky said.

‘Am I?’

‘Yeah. Quieter than usual. Which is saying something.’

Liam shrugged. He felt jittery, anxious. Maybe the bloke had ripped him off. Maybe it was just paracetamol. Or worse still… a fucking laxative. Jesus Christ, what if it was a laxative? Before his thoughts could spiral any further, it hit him and he was lost for words. His brain was in some sort of spin.

It was the whoosh.

It didn’t arrive slowly. It didn’t warn him. It was as if someone turned on a switch inside his skull and the world fell off its axis into… well, whatever was happening. Something entirely new was unfolding, unlike anything Liam had ever felt before.

The opening keys and bass of Rhythm is a Dancer throbbed through the speakers. The same flat songs that had scraped at Liam all night, suddenly shifted in an instant, revealing depth he’d never heard before, layers peeling open like a secret. The bassline felt alive, a heartbeat linking itself to his. The keyboards were like messages being sent from another planet. The hi-hats shimmered like light on water. The vocals soared. Even the DJ’s voice, once irritating, now wrapped around him like reassurance. His mind felt oddly unburdened, stripped of its usual tension. And the people. God. They weren’t just dancing; they were shining, giving off this soft wrapping warmth, like they were made of pure goodwill and gold sparkles.

He looked at Ricky and a wave of love slammed into him, fierce enough to wobble his knees. His best mate. His brother from another mother. The lad who’d stuck by him through every stupid thing he’d ever done. Why had he never told him that he loved him? 

‘Ric,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion.

‘What?’

‘I love you. Did you know that?’

‘What’s that bender boy?’ Ricky laughed, confused. ‘You’re acting proper strange, you know that?’

‘I’m feeling…’ Liam paused, searching. ‘I’m feeling… groovy.’

Ricky shot him a baffled look, as if trying to work out what universe Liam had just slipped back from. ‘What the fuck you on about? Groovy?’

His skin felt alive, every nerve firing like electricity. The lights weren’t too bright anymore; they were beautiful, painting the room in colours he’d never noticed before. The bass thudded through his chest, his bones, even his teeth. He wanted to move. He needed to move. It was the Ritzy — the Shitzy, but somehow it didn’t feel like the same place at all. It felt like paradise had taken up residence in North London.

The DJ eased into All and All by Joyce Sims, and Liam felt his nerves crackle, as if the song had reached deeper than sound should go and touched a hidden switch that lifted him clean out of the room. 

‘I'm going to dance,’ Liam said.

‘What in the Night Fever is going on with you? You never dance.’

Liam stepped onto the dance floor, and it was like crossing into a different world. Bodies pressed in from every side, but instead of panic, a strange sense of safety washed over him. He was connected. Like everyone was part of the same thing, moving to the same rhythm, breathing the same air. He could feel their energy, their joy, their aliveness.

Ollie popped up in front of him. ‘You’re actually dancing!’

Liam was laughing so hard his chest hurt. Ollie laughed clumsily with him, and then they hugged, in the middle of the dance floor, and it didn’t feel weird or out of place. It felt perfect.

Sally and Kitty drifted into view. Kitty grabbed Liam’s hands and spun him, her face lit with a happiness he’d rarely seen, so genuine it almost stunned him. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful, that the whole moment shimmered with beauty. 

‘Are you off your face!’ Sally shouted.

‘I’m perfect!’ he called back.

Ollie stood there too, swaying gently, and Liam pulled him close. ‘You see everything,’ he whispered into Ollie’s ear. ‘You’re always watching.’

Ollie smiled, soft and bewildered.’

The DJ at the Ritzy outdid himself when he dropped French Kiss. The dancefloor erupted. Liam had heard the track before, but now he understood it. The way it built and built, the woman's voice moaning and gasping, the orgasmic release when the beat finally dropped. It was sex and joy and freedom all compressed into seven minutes of Vinyl bliss.

He let his eyes fall shut and let the ecstasy take him.

Time just slipped away. His shirt was drenched. His jaw kept tightening, teeth grinding without him noticing until it was already happening, but he didn’t care. Nothing felt wrong. Nothing felt heavy. The panic that had lived inside him for years was simply… simply gone. What filled the space instead was bright, overwhelming euphoria.

At some point, Ricky pulled him aside.

Liam grinned. ‘Everything's amazing, Ric. Everything is—’

‘You're drugged up, aren’t you? Jesus, Liam.’ Ricky looked uneasy, but curious too. ‘Where’d you get it?’

‘Ric, you have to try this. This is… what we’ve been missing. What it’s supposed to feel like.’

‘What are you on about? What’s what supposed to feel like?’

‘Everything. Life. Being alive. Love.’

‘Oh, piss off.’ Ricky laughed. ‘Your mum is so gonna kill you when I tell her about this.’

‘Hope you’re having fun — big fun,’ the DJ called, his smooth voice rattling through the worn-out speakers. He pushed the fader up, and Big Fun by Inner City flooded the room in full drunken Ritzy energy.

Liam danced until his legs throbbed, then pushed through it and danced some more. He told strangers he loved them. He spoke with a girl about the meaning of everything and felt, for a fleeting second, like they’d solved the whole mess of the world. He went outside to the beer garden, looked up at the stars, and became emotional because they were so impossibly beautiful.

Out in the garden he bumped into the bloke who’d sold him the pill. The guy was with his mates, all of them clearly on the same wavelength as Liam, all of them glowing with that same inner light. 

‘Alright?’ the bloke said, grinning and slurring. ‘How you feeling? Buzzing?’

‘Like I've been reborn,’ Liam said, and he meant it.

‘Love it. Told you, didn’t I? First time's always special.’ He sparked up a cigarette and offered it to Liam, who took it even though he didn't smoke. 

‘Tell me about those raves?’ Liam quietly asked, choking on the cigarette but pretending he wasn’t. 

‘You mean the real raves, not this.’ He waved a hand at the Ritzy as if it offended him. ‘Not these cattle-market crap. I’m talking fields full of people, rigs stacked higher than your house, DJs who can actually mix. Tunes that don’t stop till sunrise. Everyone buzzing, everyone connected. It’s a movement, mate. It’s flipping everything on its head.’

Liam felt his brain light up. ‘Yeah. That. How do I get there?’

‘Flyer’s mate. Pirate radio. Stations out there dropping the info — where, when, all of it. You just need to tune in.’ He dug into his pocket and passed Liam a crumpled photocopied flyer, which was black and white with a big smiley face in the middle and LOVE DANCE across the top. At the bottom, it said: 87.9 FM. Saturday night. Listen in.

‘So… this weekend. Yeah?’

‘They’re every weekend, mate. It’s happening all over. Essex, Kent, London, everywhere. The police haven’t got a Scooby what to do, not really, but there’s too many of us now anyway. You should go. Take your mates. It’ll change your lives.’

‘It already has,’ Liam said, staring at the flyer.

The bloke smiled. ‘Nah, brother. This…’ He gestured at the club. ‘…this is just the beginning.’

By the time the club was closing, the pill was wearing off. The euphoria didn't crash so much as fade, like someone slowly turning down a dimmer switch. Liam felt tired but not exhausted. Sad but not depressed. He wanted more. God, he wanted more, but he also felt satisfied in a way he'd never experienced before. This was new.

His friends found him outside, sitting on the kerb. 

‘You alright?’ Kitty asked, sitting down beside him. She looked concerned, her face drawn and pale even under the orange glow of the streetlight.

‘I'm good,’ he said. ‘Really good.’

‘You worried us a bit in there. You were acting mental.’

‘I know. I'm sorry.’ He looked at her properly. ‘Are you okay? You look tired.’

She laughed, but it was hollow. ‘I'm always tired.’

‘What's going on?’

‘Nothing. Everything. I don't know.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Work's shit. My mum's doing my head in. I just feel stuck, you know how it is.’

Liam did know. He knew exactly. He pulled out the crumpled flyer and showed her. ‘Look, a rave. This weekend. I think we should go.’

Kitty studied it. She looked at him. ‘You want us to go to a rave? Aren’t they…  illegal?’

‘Don’t worry about that. I want all of us to go. What I felt in there tonight, what that pill did, it wasn't just getting off your face. It was like everything made sense for the first time. Like I could finally breathe.’ He looked at her. ‘Don't you want to feel like that?’

She was quiet for a long moment. ‘Yeah. I think I really do.’

Liam pulled Kitty in for a hug. ‘I just need to convince the others now.’

Ricky, Sally, and Ollie fell down onto the kerb next to Kitty. 

‘No sign of Matt then?’ Ricky roared drunkenly. 

‘Nah. Gone.’