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View Full Version : Review: ISH, Central London



David Bailey
22nd-May-2005, 09:24 AM
OK, I’m going to put my words where my mouth is ( :what: ) and post a proper review.

I’m going to follow a previous suggestion, and only post reviews about nights I enjoyed, or where the balance of comments are positive. I’ll still whinge about some things (of course - it’s me after all :innocent: ), but you can take it as given that I enjoyed the evening overall.

I'll also try to avoid too much talking about individuals (except me of course :) ), or giving "marks out of ten" comments. Unless I really want to :wink:

So, I went to ISH (Great Portland Street, central London) on Tuesday 17th May.

The teacher was Simon, the demo was a certain foxy lady (!), but I only caught the last few minutes of the intermediate class, due to getting lost in Maida Vale for 15 minutes.

I got slightly confused when entering the place, as there was a very small room in front of me, with a class going on, and I had a horrible moment when I thought “Is this it?”. It turns out that this was the consolidation class, held in the bar area, duh.

The main class was in the main hall, which I eventually found after fumbling around trying to open a couple of wrong doors. Good thing I have no sense of embarrassment then; yep, that was me, fumble fumble. …

From what saw of the class, it was an extremely long and complex routine – but I understand from later comments that this was a revision class or something… People generally seemed to be very familiar with the routine, so that explains it.

So, onto the freestyle. There were lots of good dancers, it was a friendly crowd, and I’ve no reason to believe this was unusual.

The dance floor was excellent, one of the best I’ve encountered recently.

The number of dancers was also perfect – enough to fill the floor, not enough to be crowded, so there was plenty of space to move.

Music was also great, at least in my subjective opinion – certainly I had no problems dancing to pretty much all the tracks.

Unfortunately, it finished at 10.30 – I was certainly up for another half-hour, but I assume that the early finish is due to the venue rules and regulations. On the plus side, the teacher actively encouraged dancers to go to the venue bar upstairs, which is great for socialising and building up friendships (ah, reminds me of the old Central Club, nostalgia trip…)

Overall, great night, good to try somewhere new, but a bit too far from my normal haunts (and finishing a bit too early) to be a regular session.