From Kate Moss's birthday party to Henry VIII's coronation: it's London's 23 wildest nights out EVER

1. Kate Moss’s The Beautiful and the Damned-themed 30th 16 January 2004

What better place to start could there be than with La Moss: host of more debauched birthday parties than Romford High Street on any given Saturday. Worth mentioning are the four days of medieval-themed mayhem in honour of her 35th, a Bowie-inspired 42nd and her 21st at the Viper Room in Los Angeles. None of these occasions, though, is as notorious as the Claridge’s bash celebrating her three decades on the planet. Chris Martin and Gwynnie left early because it was getting too wild. Ronnie Wood fell off the wagon. And then, if the tabloids are to be believed, there was an in-keeping-with-the-theme orgy. ‘One of the most eager participants in these fevered goings on is a woman who is a household name in Britain,’ gasped the Daily Mail. ‘She is having sex with a man who is neither husband… nor regular partner.’ Imagine!

2. Virginia Woolf’s Bright Young Things party February 1925

Bloomsbury didn’t know what hit it… and neither did the outside world. Behind the door of 50 Gordon Square, gays, lesbians and bisexuals could freely enjoy one another’s company, thanks to their hosts Woolf and her sister-in-law Karin. And all at a time when a young man could face prison time for carrying a powder compact in his pocket.

3. Bloomberg’s Seven Deadly Sins Christmas do December 2000

Thought The Wolf of Wall Street wasn’t realistic? You should have been at what the tabloids called ‘the ultimate office party’ (puke), which cost £1m, was staffed by 600 people and featured drag queens, a trough of truffles, massage tables, a 25ft bed covered in purple satin and entertainers strolling around with wads of cash shouting, ‘Money, ain’t it gorgeous?’ Really, though… a trough?

4. Four Weddings and a Funeral premiere May 1994

On the invitation, Richard Curtis encouraged his guests to dust off and wear their own wedding finery. Many did. But the girlfriend of his lead actor very much did not: going instead for a Versace dress that invented the phrase ‘THAT dress’ and broke the internet about 345 years before the internet even existed. ‘Sexy Elizabeth Hurley couldn’t have looked less like a blushing bride,’ sleazed then-gossip columnist at The Sun, Andy Coulson, who was later jailed on phone hacking charges. Meanwhile, ‘Parklife’ had just come out. Oasis’s ‘Live Forever’ was on the way. Good times… apart from the fact that Wet Wet Wet were also about to release the film’s theme song, which would become the third-biggest-selling single of the Nineties and bore everyone — including Wet Wet Wet — absolutely senseless.

5. The launch of Shoom November 1987

Taking place at an abandoned gym in Southwark, the most potent refreshments on sale at Danny Rampling’s night — and arguably the capital’s first-ever rave — was Lucozade from the vending machines. It mattered little though, for by this time the acid house attendees were more than familiar with an… alternative line in refreshments. All the clubs in the West End shut at 3am, but for Rampling, just back from a revelatory first trip to Ibiza, that was not late enough. At the gym he could go until 5am officially. And often after that first night…

6. The Beatles’ Apple Boutique opening May 1968

Depending on how cynical you are, The Beatles’ rainbow-coloured Baker Street store was either ‘a beautiful place where beautiful people can buy beautiful things’ (Paul McCartney) or a tax write-off (the highest rate of income tax was 90 per cent at the time). Though it was well attended by other celebrities (Jack Bruce, Cilla Black, Eric Clapton), Beatle-wise only John and George (ie the cool ones) turned up: the former having designed invites that read: ‘Come at 7.46. Fashion show at 8.16.’ The store closed less than a year later, which is unsurprising. I mean, who ever thought something called ‘The Apple Store’ would be a success?

7. Mick Jagger’s 25th birthday August 1968

He might have been on holiday for the opening of his own band’s shop, but Paul McCartney was not going to miss the birthday of the singer in The Beatles’ fiercest rivals. Tony Sanchez’s Tottenham Court Road basement club, Vesuvio, was packed with all the models, musicians, movers and shakers you’d expect for such an occasion. An excited not-yet-Sir Mick arrived bearing the acetate of the Stones’ forthcoming Beggars Banquet album for everyone to hear. Which they did, until a pesky Beatle pulled the ultimate ‘hold my beer’ move with an also-just-completed single called ‘Hey Jude’. The DJ put it on once, then twice, then a third time to an increasingly delirious reaction from the assembled throng. Increasingly delirious, that is, apart from one person who looked decidedly miffed.

8. Henry VIII’s coronation June 1509

Well, it was never going to be a quiet one, was it? Particularly when there were so many previous coronations — Edward I, for example, ordered 22,460 chickens for his — that needed upstaging. The most notable detail of big Henry’s is perhaps the fact that he had servants crawling underneath the tables to assist the ladies present in urinating when required: quite the feminist slay for a guy who had a third of his wives beheaded.

9. Fred Again at Boiler Room July 2022

‘He’s too posh!’ screeched commentators who weren’t there. ‘We don’t give a shit!’ replied those who were — and a lot, lot more around the world — as this set quickly became the most raved about in Boiler Room history and made Frederick John Philip Gibson a star. Less than a year later, he would be playing to a Saturday-night Glastonbury crowd that dwarfed that of Guns N’ Roses headline show at the same time on the Pyramid stage.

10. The opening of Freeze July 1988

At which, in an empty Port Authority building in Surrey Quays, 16 Goldsmiths students headed up by one Damien Hirst announced themselves to the world. Mat Collishaw had been up for three days before the party even started finishing off his own installation for the show, Bullet Hole, which, if you haven’t seen it, looks a bit like a… oh, you do know. The art world — and in particular the London art world — would never be the same again.

11. David Bowie’s Ziggy aftershow July 1973

Half of Bowie’s band didn’t even know that their leader was about to retire his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust — ‘This is the last show we’ll ever play’ — on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon. That said, they and Ziggy — though mainly Ziggy — did get one hell of a leaving do at Regent Street’s Café Royal where the standard issue rock ’n’ roll icon types were joined by Barbra Streisand, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Britt Ekland and Ryan O’Neal. Oh, and Angie Bowie and Bianca Jagger, who were spotted snogging.