Rave, games and showers of Coco Pops: a night out at Liverpool’s Bongo’s Bingo

The city’s madcap mix of bingo, dressing up and dancing has become a cultural phenomenon, bucking the trend of a declining UK club scene and packing venues nationwide. Ahead of the night’s 10th anniversary, our writer gives it a go

In Liverpool, in a vast warehouse lined with bierkeller trestle tables, each one sardine-packed with people, a woman is dancing. She is dancing on her seat to Europe’s The Final Countdown. With her arms in the air, she is bellowing out the words and, indeed, the synth riff. It is 8pm. The woman is me.

Around me, everyone is doing exactly the same. To my right, a woman in full chicken costume is flapping her wings. To the left, a beautiful dark-haired girl, with the look of an Italian Dolce & Gabbana model at her rich husband’s funeral, is up with her crew, screeching, waving a glass of something sticky and deadly. I look around. I can’t see anybody – not a single person in the room – who isn’t singing along and dancing on the benches.

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