Clubland - The Garrick Club
The Garrick Club has recently made the news for ‘blackballing’ Luke Johnson, head of Channel 4. Members ‘didn’t like the look of him’, apparently.
Interviewer Jeremy Paxman was also blackballed - though subsequently either he or the club mellowed, and he was let in.
The Garrick Club is the media and luvvies club - full of TV people, writers, actors, producers. It’s named after an actor - David Garrick -and it’s based not in ‘Clubland’ around Pall Mall and St James’s, but in Covent Garden - close to the theatres.Though the club was founded in 1831, the current club house only dates from the 1860s and I have to say I find it rather undistinguished.
Dickens was a member; so was AA Milne, who created Winnie the Pooh. The club also contains an amazing archive of theatrical memorabilia.
However if you think all these media types are progressive, think again. The Garrick still doesn’t admit women. So I won’t be having lunch there any time soon.
Where: 13-15 Garrick Street, Covent Garden
