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Although London musical theatre lovers have long been well catered for in terms of actual musicals, the West End has long lacked a classic hang out for lovers of this business we call show.
Aside from the (on hiatus, possibly permanently so) Musical Theatre Cafe and Diner, the closest contender was Overtures Piano Bar, which started life in 2018 as a pop up of renowned NYC showtunes bar Marie’s Crisis, and existed in various forms at various venues for around five years. If that had the slight air of old school musical theatre insiderishness to it then that’s something presumably being addressed by its appropriately dramatic 2025 makeover as The Room Where It Happens.
Taking its name from one of the most famous tracks from Hamilton, TRWIH is pretty much everything you might want out of life, assuming your main aspirations are to get drunk and listen to showtunes.
Located at the top of musical venue Greek Street Live – a Soho townhouse once frequented by Oscar Wilde – it’s currently open Thursday to Saturday (with Wednesdays being added soon). You can get a bottomless brunch there and other such generic Soho bar things, but the real magic kicks off after 5pm when the serving staff start belting out showtunes (they’re trained actors, we should stress); at 9pm the piano is broken out and live singalongs are deployed; come throwing out time at 2am your life will presumably be virtually indistinguishable from an episode of Elaine Paige on Sunday.
As you’d expect there are cocktails called things like The Judy and The Patti and there’s a 2-for-1 happy hour every day (until 8pm Thursday and Friday and 7pm Saturday).
Really, though, it’s going to come down to whether you like showtunes – avoid like the plague if you can’t stand em, but if you’re a fan hopefully this will be the room where ‘it’ happens for you.
The Room Where It Happens is at Greek Street Live, 5 Greek Street, For more information or to make a booking go to theroomwhereithappens.co.uk.