Alternative bingo nights in London

Forget a night out at your local Mecca Bingo: we've gone bonkers for number yelling with inventive themes, cool club-style venues, ridiculous prizes and a rowdy crowd. Daubers at the ready for our guide to the best offbeat bingo parties in London
Mary-Alice Thompson
Gareth Vipers19 February 2013

Rebel Bingo

After a sold-out run at Village Underground last year and successful nights all over the world, London’s leading bingo partystarters are back for their first shows 2013. Revolutionising the sleepy preserve of tired seaside piers, they inject their bingo parties with drinking, dancing and some serious dancefloor beats. While tickets for the first two London dates (March 9 and 15) have already been snapped up, they've announced a third show on March 16, making this run their biggest yet.

March 16 at Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, N1 9NL. rebelbingo.com.

Musical Bingo

The original musical bingo night is just like regular bingo, but instead of ticking off numbers, you tick off the songs played over the sound system. The team bring in different themes and random quirks, too: you are just as likely to find yourself bobbing for eggs or smashing a piñata as you are crossing off that much-coveted full house. You won't find a £500 jackpot here, but that's not really what it's about.

Musical Bingo is on the third Thursday of every month at Concrete, 56 Shoreditch Rd, E1 6JJ (next: February 21) and is at The Paradise, 19 Kilburn Lane, W10 4AE on February 28. Tickets £7 in adv. musicalbingo.co.uk.

Indie Bingo

The chandelier-lit Tooting Tram and Social is a cavernous nightspot hidden away on the Mitcham Road near Tooting Broadway station. Held once a month, their Indie Bingo night apes musical bingo but with an indie twist. Cross off the alternative anthems to win drinks vouchers and a cash jackpot.

Second Thursday of the month at Tooting Tram and Social, 46A-48A Mitcham Rd, SW17 9NA. indiebingo.com.

Bogan Bingo

For the uninitiated, a bogan is an antipodean insult for the less cultured city dweller (think frayed denim, grubby paisley shirts and mullets), so this should give you some idea of what to expect from Clapham’s weekly rough and ready bingo night. Tongues firmly in cheeks, of course. It features two games of bingo, drinks specials, prizes and a rowdy air guitar competition. Oh, and lots of drinking, naturally.

Weekly Thursdays at The Underdog, 16a Clapham Common South Side, SW4 7AB. theunderdogbar.co.uk.

Monday nights in Vauxhall bring you the bingo-cabaret mayhem that is The Big Bingo Show. Musical sing-alongs, surprise guests and some spontaneous ad-libs from alt.drag performers Timberlina and Hey Baylen make for an, ahem, interesting evening.

Weekly Mondays at Royal Vauxhall Tavern, 372 Kennington Lane, SE11 5HY. rvt.org.uk.

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