The Queen Adelaide has a real casual and unpretentious atmosphere. They moved all of that stuff, including this very cumbersome bit of seating, down the road into a much smaller space called The Queen Adelaide. It was famous for having a lot of tat on the walls and decorations. It’s from the people who ran the iconic East London venue The George and Dragon which closed around 2015. My first place is actually my favourite place, which is The Queen Adelaide on Hackney Road. So, if you fancy a pint or your favourite non-alcoholic cocktails, here are the best venues London has to offer. With Pride Month around the corner, Alim lists his favourite top 10 LGBTQ+ nightlife venues to give the most iconic bar/pub crawl you could ever dream of. “I feel really lucky to have heard a lot of stories from people who aren’t big activists, but who were part of an underground movement with how their venues came to be and what they were part of.” “I had the privilege of talking to some really amazing people,” he tells GAY TIMES. As the book digs deep to unearth untold stories, Alim speaks fondly of the people and communities who helped shape London in all its queer glory. It’s very quintessentially naff and British and I loved that.”Ī wide-spanning introduction to influencers, nightlife venues, bars, pubs, and gentlemen clubs, Queer London magnifies the significance and necessity of LGBTQ+ spaces in the sprawling city. But actually, there’s this whole world people just don’t know about. Unless you knew to look for that, you would think that drag in the UK was very much in pubs or working men’s clubs until the sort of influx of the American drag scene in the 1990s. “ My favourite thing that I learned about was the Porchester Hall drag balls that ran from the late 1960s up until the 1980s. There’s a lot of history out there that hasn’t been explored widely,” Alim says over Zoom, reflecting on the importance of Queer London.
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“I learned absolutely masses and not just about various bars and clubs from decades passed, although that was really fascinating. Speaking to GAY TIMES, we asked Alim to rank his favourite queer nightlife spaces in the city. From historic bars to background history on vital queer communities, Alim’s debut book is an essential look into some of the iconic venues and locations that have shaped the LGBTQ+ scene in London. The newly released book came about as a collaboration between writer Alim Kheraj and ACC Art Books as part of the publisher’s London series. Queer London is a comprehensive go-to guide exploring the capital’s vibrant LGBTQ+ scene.