Imogen West-Knights

The very word ‘Infernos’ is enough to turn the stomach, to call to mind the aniseed burn of a jagerbomb, the sharp tang of vomit slapping pavement, the prickle of sweat crawling down your forehead . The club on Clapham High Street has been the messiest night out that 12 pounds can guarantee inside the M25 for years now, rammed with everyone from students to pissed estate agents, the lost, the drunk, the confused and people who used to be on the Apprentice. Even Margot Robbie is a fan, which makes sense because Australia is one of the most well-represented nations in the cultural melting pot of chaos known as Infernos.  This year, the club turns 20, marking two decades of lighting redder than Satan’s colon, the most sinister carpets in London and all the cheese hits a person could eat. In its time, Infernos has hit the big screen as the setting for the infamous club scene from the ‘Inbetweeners Movie’, played host to recording sessions by the Sex Pistols and I’m sure that whoever opened the venue as a cinema theatre in the early 1900s would be scandalized to their very core by the debauchery the place has seen since then. Here follows the deranged story of Infernos: the hacks, the pitfalls, the good, bad and ugly as told by the people who love and hate it most: London’s clubbers. Photograph courtesy of Infernos The inevitability of Infernos Nobody really makes a clear-minded decision to visit Infernos. Instead, the club is a siren that calls to people after three to seven dr