The Limelight
A church that became a Sunday tea dance
The Limelight opened in October 1985 in a disused Welsh Presbyterian chapel on Shaftesbury Avenue, and promptly became one of London’s most spectacular nightclubs. The gothic arched windows made a surreal setting for the gay Sunday tea dances that became its most celebrated nights. Boy George was a fixture. Leigh Bowery – the Australian performance artist who co-founded Taboo and later modelled for Lucian Freud – treated the church architecture as his natural habitat. George Michael was photographed here.
By the early 1990s the Sunday sessions were the social centre of queer creative London, the meeting point of fashion, music, art and nightlife. The club closed in 2002 after licensing troubles. It is now shops and a hotel. For its Sunday crowd this was still a church – just a different kind of worship.