CAMP, Shoreditch (CLOSED now Rotary Bar Diner)

Its geeky crowd could be undergraduates of physics, engineering or some equally turgid subject; the room, a dilapidated provincial student union circa Life On Mars. Welcome to The CAMP, as in City arts and music project, Shoreditch’s latest pop-up social-cum-events-space recently sold to me by a spotty Hoxton mullet as ‘major’. Yeh, and I’m Banksy! While one desperado punter channels Neil from the Young Ones, another - a disaffected loner with scary stare-y Manson eyes - skulks in a dark corner; nursing a pint of Amstel and deep-seated grudges against mankind, he plots his Columbine style revenge. My mate only agrees to stay if I’ll treat him to somewhere (anywhere!) better later. Rightly deeming our makeshift environment, a defunct Chinese restaurant with all the charm of a Düsseldorf abattoir, not conducive to £6.50 cocktails - hardly NUS friendly - he orders the (passable) house red. A stoned Magic Numbers tribute, meanwhile, reasons things will improve when a basement electro-club gets going and why don’t I drop in soon for a ‘wicked’ lunch? Right! Although such farty arty gaffs may impress virgin culture sponges, I’m unimpressed. The CAMP is to camp what Alan Carr is to cage fighting and with sexier possibilities nearby, a revisit is as likely as X Factor twins Jedward scooping the Mercury prize.


The CAMP 70 - 74 City Rd EC2A  7253 2443