Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho draws on classic British horror, Soho locations and the ghostly history of the Cafe de Paris, writes DAVID TURNBULL
TITLE: Last Night in Soho
RELEASED: 4 September 2021 (Venice), 29 October 2021 (UK and US)
DIRECTOR: Edgar Wright
CAST: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg.
Review of Last Night in Soho 2021
2026 marks the fifth anniversary of Last Night in Soho, Edgar Wright’s homage to the West End horror and serial killer films of the 1960s and 70s. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2021 before being released in UK cinemas just before Halloween.
Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead 2004, and co-script writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Penny Dreadful) famously trekked the Central London streets previously seen in films such as Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, Hitchcock’s Frenzy and Hammer’s Straight on Till Morning, hunting out suitable locations.
One location Wright was very keen on utilising was the iconic Cafe de Paris in Piccadilly’s Coventry Street. The legendary nightclub, which opened in 1904, was to be where the pivotal scene featuring the two female leads, Eloise and Sandy, would anchor the movie’s time-switching plotline.
The venue had closed permanently following the Covid lockdown, but its fixtures and fittings remained intact. It had previously been used as a filming location as far back as 1929 for Anna May Wong’s Piccadilly and had appeared in both Kray brothers biopics, The Krays 1990 and Legend 2015, as well as Absolute Beginners 1986.
It also had its own fantastic ghost story, featuring West Indian jazz musician and 1940s swing band leader Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson.
On 8 March 1941, during the height of the London Blitz, the subterranean dancefloor of the club suffered a direct hit from a German bomb which penetrated its ventilation shaft. ‘Snakehips’ Johnson was killed instantly while in mid-performance, aged only 26.
Thirty-four people, including band members, club staff and punters, died with him. Eighty were pulled out of the rubble, badly injured.
For years after the club was rebuilt, there were reports of ghostly swing music being heard echoing through the lavish interior, along with the shuffle of dancing feet on the dancefloor. Accompanying this audible phenomenon were numerous sightings of an apparition dressed in Snakehips Johnson’s trademark white tie and tails.
A decade before Wright began filming Last Night in Soho, Ben Aaronovitch had published Moon Over Soho (April 2011), part of the Rivers of London urban fantasy series. The Snakehips Johnson/Cafe de Paris ghost story was a central element in lead character Peter Grant’s latest paranormal investigation.
However, when Wright was given access to the club to scope out its potential as a location, he was disappointed to find it was much smaller than he’d imagined and, as such, not suitable to facilitate his vision for what would transpire there.
Unperturbed, he recreated the interior at Ealing Studios in West London, increasing the size of the dancefloor and having replicas built of its sweeping staircases, private booths and viewing balconies. He wasn’t too happy with the potential of the club’s small doorway either and opted instead to dress the entrance of the Empire Cinema in nearby Haymarket, another venue that had recently closed.
The scene was set for Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) to enter her surreal dream state, where she would vicariously experience the neon-lit world of London’s swinging 1960s through the eyes of wannabe pop star Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy).
Wright has Eloise descend the sweeping stairwell into the heart of the Cafe de Paris while, on the club’s stage, Beth Singh is belting out You’re My World in a fantastic but somehow eerie interpretation of 60s pop icon Cilla Black. It is here that Eloise/Sandy has her first dance with the charming but villainous pimp and people trafficker Jack, played by Doctor Who‘s Matt Smith.
In its heyday, the Rialto Cinema, now a casino, sat above the Cafe de Paris. Wright gives a nod to this, showing a huge cinema poster for the 1965 James Bond movie Thunderball as Eloise enters the club for the first time.
Wright also adopted the Rialto name for the far seedier club where Jack bullies Sandy into prostitution, having convinced her that a stellar career as a singer is within her grasp. A gloomy doorway in Greek Street, once the entrance to master potter Josiah Wedgwood’s 18th century showroom, was used for location shots of the club’s rundown foyer.
In keeping with the film’s time-switching plot, Wright blended in actors whose heyday was in the 60s and 70s along with his contemporary cast, which also included Michael Ajao of Attack the Block 2011 and James and Oliver Phelps, the Weasley twins from the Harry Potter franchise, in support roles.
Representing the link to the past in both reality and the plot were Rita Tushingham, star of Straight on Till Morning, Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg.
Other filming locations included the London College of Fashion and the Truman Brewery. The famous Toucan pub on Carlisle Street became the pub where Eloise gets a job as a part-time barmaid. The narrow streets and alleyways of Soho add to an increasingly dark atmosphere as the plot descends from neon to noir.
Goodge Place in Fitzrovia was used as the location of the former boarding house where Eloise rents a room from Diana Rigg’s character, Ms Collins. The room becomes a conduit to the past for Eloise, eventually morphing into the location of a terrifying ghost story.
This, in turn, reveals an unexpected twist in the revelation of a serial killer’s identity, and the truth about the unexpected connection between Sandy and Ms Collins. The film’s climax makes good use of the age-old horror trope of a house ablaze as its terrible secrets go up in flames.
In the wake of the movie, the BFI ran a curated companion season, London After Dark, which featured screenings of the films from which it drew its inspiration. If you’ve never seen Last Night in Soho, it’s worth tracking down on DVD or Blu-ray.
I must confess my own personal history with the Cafe de Paris. It was once owned by Mecca Leisure. Back in the 1980s, when I worked as a chef for their banqueting division, I attended meetings there with management as an elected staff rep. Later, as a full-time union official, I was involved in negotiating pay and conditions for the Rialto Casino staff.
Now, as a tour guide, I stop there to talk about Last Night in Soho on my ‘History of Horror Guided Walk’. It’s a great spot to follow in Edgar Wright’s footsteps and pay homage to those old West End classics, as well as his own modern horror triumph.
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