Club Montepulciano was a critically acclaimed lounge and cabaret club-night institution that ran themed events across a number of venues in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, with guest appearances in the South of England and across Europe, from 1993 to 2004. Acting as a launch pad for new talent, the club influenced the emerging cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

 and burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

 scenes.

As a musical event, Club Montepulciano was founded on swinging cocktail tunes from nightclubs and ballrooms of a bygone era. Its themed nights had different retro vibes, influenced by icons like James Bond

James Bond

James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 and the Playboy

Playboy

Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

 clubs of the 1960s, with clubbers dressing in the style of each event.

Venues graced by Club Montepulciano included the Hanover Grand, Café de Paris

Café de Paris (London)

Café de Paris is a London nightclub, located in the West End, beside Leicester Square on Coventry Street, Piccadilly.It opened in 1924 and subsequently featured such performers as Dorothy Dandridge, Marlene Dietrich, Harry Gold, Harry Roy, Ken Snakehips Johnson and Maxine Cooper Gomberg...

, the Connaught Ballrooms, Turnmills

Turnmills

Turnmills was a London nightclub on the corner of Turnmill Street and Clerkenwell Road in the London Borough of Islington. It closed on the morning of 24 March 2008....

, the Kensington Roofgardens, Brockwell Lido

Brockwell Lido

Brockwell Lido is a large lido in Brockwell Park, Herne Hill, London. It opened in July 1937, closed in 1990 and after a local campaign was re-opened in 1994.- History :...

, the Rivoli Ballroom

Rivoli Ballroom

The Rivoli Ballroom is one of the few remaining ballrooms in London, England. It is at 350 Brockley Road London SE4 2BY, opposite Crofton Park overground rail station. It started life as the Crofton Park Picture Palace in July 1913 and was converted into a ballroom in 1957, reopening in 1959 with...

, the Embassy Club, Glastonbury Festival

Glastonbury Festival

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...

, Glyndeborne, Pacha

Pacha

Pacha is a nightclub franchise with headquarters in Ibiza, Spain. The first Pacha club was opened in Sitges outside Barcelona in 1967. The Ibiza club, located in Ibiza Town, is the best known venue today. During 2009 Pacha acquired El Divino, near the marina of Ibiza la Nueva, which will be...

's flagship venue in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Dingwalls

Dingwalls

Dingwalls is a venue adjacent to Camden Lock in London, England. It houses bars, cafes, clubs . The building itself is one of many industrial Victorian buildings that were put to new use in the 20th century. The original owner of the building, T.E...

, Eastborne Wintergardens, the original Brighton Concord, The Water Rats, Madam Jojo's, the Scala

Scala (club)

Scala is a nightclub in London, England, near King's Cross railway station.-History:The Scala was originally built as a cinema to the designs of H Courtney Constantine, but construction was interrupted by the First World War and it spent some time being used to manufacture aircraft parts, and as a...

 club at Kings Cross, the Eve Club, the Blackheath Halls, and The Camden Centre.

Club Montepulciano's cabaret and comedy acts included The League of Gentlemen

The League of Gentlemen (comedy)

The League of Gentlemen are a quartet of British dark comedy writers/performers, formed in 1995 by Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith...

 (before they were famous), Mackenzie Crook

Mackenzie Crook

Paul Mackenzie Crook is a British actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Gareth Keenan in The Office and Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.-Life and career:...

 from The Office

The Office (UK TV series)

The Office is a British sitcom television series that was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious...

as Charlie Cheese, Jackie Clune

Jackie Clune

Jackie Clune is a British entertainer, noted as a woman journalist, actress, voiceover artiste and radio/TV broadcaster. She performs cabaret, and is known for her one-woman shows and late Karen Carpenter tribute act...

 as Karen Carpenter

Karen Carpenter

Karen Anne Carpenter was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the 1970s duo The Carpenters. She was a drummer of exceptional skill, but she is best remembered for her vocal performances of idealistic romantic ballads of true love...

, Matt Lucas

Matt Lucas

Matthew Richard "Matt" Lucas is an English comedian, screenwriter and actor best known for his acclaimed work with David Walliams in the television show Little Britain; as well as for his portrayals of the scorekeeping baby George Dawes in the comedy panel game Shooting Stars, Tweedledee and...

 from Little Britain

Little Britain

Little Britain is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was first broadcast on BBC radio and then turned into a television show. It was written by comic duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas...

and Shooting Stars

Shooting Stars

Shooting Stars is a British television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two as a pilot in 1993, then as 3 full series from 1995 to 1997, then on BBC Choice from January to December 2002 with 2 series before returning to BBC Two for another 3 series from 2008 until its axing in 2011...

, Amy Lamé

Amy Lamé

Amy Lamé is an American-born, British performer, writer, television and radio presenter and producer.-Biography:Lamé was born Amy Caddle and raised in Keyport, New Jersey. She attended Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland and moved to London in 1992...

 in collaboration with 'Duckie', Ursula Martinez

Ursula Martinez

Ursula Martinez is a London-based Anglo-Spanish British writer, performer, and cult cabaret diva noted for her use of nudity and non-actors....

, The Tiger Lillies (Shockheaded Peter), Men in Coats, Mike Flowers Pops, The Lorraine Bowen

Lorraine Bowen

Lorraine Bowen is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Born in Cheltenham, Bowen was brought up in Chelmsford, Essex....

 Experience, Tina C and Dr Stuart (The Fifth Element), and the UK Latin American Ballroom Dance Champions.

Complementing these performers were circus acts, magicians, and impersonators. Club Montepulciano also hosted its own in-house casino, talk-a-oke, the Flirtation Tank and Minuscule of Sound, as well as the in-house band Montepulciano.

Club Montepulciano was described as one of the "199 things you have to do before you're a real Londoner" by Time Out magazine in 2004. The demand for its music grew into Club Montepulciano Recordings and subsequently Freshly Squeezed Music.

The band Hooverphonic

Hooverphonic

Hooverphonic are a Belgian rock/pop group, formed in 1995. Though early on categorized as a trip hop group, they quickly expanded their sound to the point where they could no longer be described as a lone genre, but rather encompass alternative, electronica, electropop, rock, and mixture of others...

recorded a song called "Club Montepulciano".