Groucho Club - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Groucho Club is a well-known private social club located at Dean Street

Dean Street

Dean Street is a street in Soho, London, England, running between Oxford Street to the north and Shaftesbury Avenue to the south.-Historical figures:The street has a rich history. In 1764 a young Mozart gave a recital at 21 Dean Street...

in Soho

Soho

Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...

, 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...

. Its members are mostly drawn from the media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

, entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...

, arts

ARts

aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....

and fashion

Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

industries.

The club has rooms on several floors, including three bars

Bar (establishment)

A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...

, two restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

s (dining room

Dining room

A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...

and brasserie

Brasserie

In France and the Francophone world, a brasserie is a type of French restaurant with a relaxed, upscale setting, which serves single dishes and other meals. The word 'brasserie' is also French for "brewery" and, by extension, "the brewing business"...

), 20 bedroom

Bedroom

A bedroom is a private room where people usually sleep for the night or relax during the day.About one third of our lives are spent sleeping and most of the time we are asleep, we are sleeping in a bedroom. To be considered a bedroom the room needs to have bed. Bedrooms can range from really simple...

s available for members or their guests, a billiards room, and four function rooms available for hire.

History

It opened in 1985 as "the antidote to the traditional club." In this spirit, the club was named after Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...

because of his famous remark that he would not wish to join any club that would have him as a member. In September 2008, British artist Stella Vine

Stella Vine

Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...

presented the club with an acrylic painting of Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

.

Rupert Hambro, Matthew Freud

Matthew Freud

Matthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.-Biography:...

, and Joel Cadbury

Joel Cadbury

Joel Cadbury is an English Entrepreneur & Philanthropist, the son of Peter Cadbury and Jennifer d'Abo , and heir to the Cadbury chocolate dynasty.Joel Cadbury is best known as Founder & Chief Executive of Longshot Limited and alongside his partner,...

(the son of Peter Cadbury

Peter Cadbury

Peter Egbert Cadbury was a British entrepreneur.He was the son of Sir Egbert Cadbury, a World War I flying ace and managing director of Cadbury Brothers, the chocolate enterprise...

) bought the club for £11.8 million in 2001. Five years later the club was bought by private-equity firm

Private equity

Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

Graphite Capital

Graphite Capital Management is a private equity firm focused on middle market leveraged buyout investments, primarily in the UK. The firm also houses a fund of funds platform that invests in other private equity funds across Europe and the US...

for £20 million.

In November 2008, Bernie Katz, the Groucho Club's front of house host, wrote a book about his experiences in Soho and at the Groucho Club.

Members

Membership is difficult to obtain and its members are mostly drawn from the media

Mass media

, entertainment

Entertainment

, arts

ARts

aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....

and fashion

Fashion

industries. The club is known as a haunt of Young British Artists

Young British Artists

Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...

, including Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

, Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

, Daniel Chadwick, Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood

Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...

, Sarah Lucas

Sarah Lucas

Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...

and Stella Vine

Stella Vine

. and post-YBA artists like Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard is a British artist.-Early life and career:Rachel Howard grew up in County Durham. She attended a Quaker school from the age of sixteen, and the stories, concerns and questions raised by religion have certainly had a profound effect on her work throughout her career. Howard graduated...

. Other entertainment stars including William Orbit

William Orbit

William Orbit is an English musician, composer and record producer, perhaps best known to most for his work on Madonna's album Ray of Light. He has also co-produced several unreleased Madonna songs originally recorded for other albums...

, Sienna Miller

Sienna Miller

Sienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...

, Keith Allen, Lily Allen

Lily Allen

Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...

, Alex James

Alex James (musician)

Professionally known as Alex James is an English musician, songwriter, journalist and cheesemaker. He is best known as the bass player and occasional vocalist of band Blur...

, Janet Street-Porter

Janet Street-Porter

Janet Street-Porter is a British media personality, journalist and television presenter. She was editor for two years of The Independent on Sunday. She relinquished the job to become editor-at-large in 2002...

, Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...

, Hugh Dennis

Hugh Dennis

Peter Hugh Dennis is an English actor, comedian, writer, impressionist and voice-over artist, best known for his work with comedy partner Steve Punt. He is also known for his position as a permanent panelist on the TV comedy show Mock The Week...

, Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...

, Liam Gallagher

Liam Gallagher

William John Paul "Liam" Gallagher is an English musician and singer-songwriter, the former frontman of the English rock band Oasis and currently of the band Beady Eye. Gallagher's erratic behaviour, distinctive singing style, and abrasive attitude have been the subject of commentary in the press...

, Robin Millar

Robin Millar

Robin John Christian Millar CBE is an English musician, songwriter and record producer.-Early life:...

, Julie Burchill

Julie Burchill

Julie Burchill is an English writer and journalist. Beginning as a writer for the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She is a self-declared "militant feminist". She has several times been involved in legal action...

, Robert Elms

Robert Elms

Robert Elms is an English writer and broadcaster. Elms was a writer for The Face magazine in the 1980s, and has a self-confessed love of clothes and fashion...

, Victor Lewis-Smith

Victor Lewis-Smith

Victor Lewis-Smith is a British satirist, producer, critic and prankster. He is known for his sarcasm and biting criticism.-Radio and recordings:...

, Samantha Janus

Samantha Janus

Samantha Zoe Womack is an English actress, singer and director, both on television and stage. In recent years she has been best known for playing the role of Ronnie Branning in EastEnders, but made her name in the early 1990s as Mandy Wilkins in Game On, and also represented the United Kingdom in...

, Rita Simons, Ronnie O'Sullivan

Ronnie O'Sullivan

Ronald Antonio "Ronnie" O'Sullivan , is an English professional snooker player known for his rapid playing style and nicknamed "The Rocket". He has been World Champion on three occasions , and is second on the all-time prize-money list, with career earnings of over £6 million, behind only Stephen...

and Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson

Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson is an English actor, model, musician, and producer. Born and raised in London, Pattinson started out his career by playing the role of Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...

are also members.

The character of Richard 'Rocky' Hardcastle in the British sitcom As Time Goes By
As Time Goes By (TV series)
As Time Goes By is a British sitcom that aired on BBC One from 1992 to 2005. Starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, it follows the relationship between two former lovers who meet unexpectedly after not having been in contact for 38 years....

purports to be a member of Groucho's.

External links

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