About the Phoenix Arts Club
A home for theatre, cabaret and late-night Soho — where performance continues long after the curtain falls.
A Home for Theatre, Cabaret and Late-Night Soho
Founded in 1988 and hidden beneath the Phoenix Theatre in the heart of Soho, The Phoenix Arts Club is one of London’s last truly independent performance venues — a place where theatre spills off the West End stage and into the night.
For nearly four decades, the Club has been a meeting place, rehearsal room, performance space and creative refuge for artists working across musical theatre, cabaret, comedy, live music and queer performance. Today, it presents over 400 performances each year, offering a rare and vital platform for live work in central London.
But the story of the Phoenix begins long before 1988.
The Club occupies the original dressing rooms and rehearsal spaces of The Phoenix Theatre above. In the 1930s, these rooms were used by Laurence Olivier, Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence during the creation of Private Lives. That theatrical lineage still runs through the building today — not as a museum, but as a living, working space.
Over the last 15 years, the Phoenix has evolved into one of the West End’s busiest late-night performance venues, transforming from a modest theatre bar into a thriving, artist-led space where audiences and performers meet on equal terms.
A Venue at the Heart of London’s Creative Community
At a time when independent venues across Soho and the West End are disappearing, the Phoenix remains a crucial part of London’s creative ecosystem.
It is not just a venue — it is infrastructure.
It provides regular paid performance opportunities for artists, a home for emerging and established performers alike, and a space where cabaret, variety and musical theatre continue to evolve.
When small venues disappear, entire creative communities disappear with them. The Phoenix exists to ensure that doesn’t happen.
The Experience
The Phoenix Arts Club is known for its atmosphere as much as its programming.
Velvet-lined, poster-covered and unmistakably theatrical, it is a place where West End performers unwind after curtain down, audiences discover something new — or something joyfully familiar — and the night rarely ends when expected.
From showtunes singalongs and late-night cabaret to live comedy, drag, music and one-off theatrical events, the programme reflects the full breadth of London’s live performance scene.
Above all, the Phoenix is a place built on people — the artists who perform, the audiences who return, and the community that continues to believe that independent culture in central London still matters.