Fire, flood, plague – and a £70m refurb: how a new members' club rose from the ashes of Camden Palace

Sitting on the covered roof terrace of the new Koko, surrounded by plants, elegant furniture and expensive looking speakers, owner Oliver Bengough is remembering the moment, on January 7, 2020, when he heard his building was on fire.

After years planning his refurbishment of one of London’s most storied music venues, he was 12 months into the building work when he got a message telling him the site was ablaze.

“I was in the US, where it was a sunny morning, when a friend sent through a video of the fire” he says. “It was more surreal than anything else. A moment like that takes a while to process.”

He got on the first plane home. It was only when he saw the venue that he realised the water was a bigger problem than the fire. As the roof burned, the copper dome that had sat atop it collapsed in on itself, forming a firewall. This meant the blaze was mercifully confined to the upper levels of the building. In putting it out, however, firefighters hosed more than 150,000 litres of water onto the venue, which seeped down into every part of the building.

“The dome burned for 10 hours,” he says. “We were extremely lucky that the theatre was never touched, but the water damage stripped it down to its bricks. We were already undertaking this huge job, of combining 220 years of architecture and restoring a theatre, but suddenly we had to restore it to a whole different level, working with English Heritage, the Victorian Society and Camden Council’s conservation department.”

After the fire and the flood came the plague. Standing at the southern end of Camden High Street, opposite Mornington Crescent tube station, in various incarnations the building Koko occupies has been a landmark for more than a century. Of all the unusual challenges Bengough has faced in restoring it, Covid was the most difficult. Building work was suspended, and only permitted again under strict regulations.

“Building in the pandemic was harder than the fire,” he says. “It took everything I had to come through that. But you find a way. We worked with brilliant people, and the project was inspiring. When you do something you believe in, you find that next step.”

At last, after seven years of planning and three years of construction, Koko is ready to welcome punters once again. It is London’s most state of the art concert venue, a 50,000sq ft, tech-enabled, social-media-friendly space, built around live performance but designed to accommodate whatever the coming decades might throw at it. The opening lineup is eclectic: Jorja Smith, Pete Doherty, Central Cee. Arcade Fire are playing at the launch this week.

“We’re doing 28 shows in 30 nights,” Bengough says. “45,000 people will come through the theatre. We’ve done the restoration but it’s also modern culture at its best.”

Touring the venue, there is no hint of the agony of its gestation. The main theatre has been restored down to its cornicing and gilding, the kinds of details most visitors will only notice when it is pointed out to them. It’s a steeply raked, warren-like theatre, far more intimate than a venue with a capacity of 1,600 ought to feel. Wherever you stand, you feel like you are part of the action. Elsewhere on the ground floor is a shop, where DJs will perform, and a pizza restaurant-cum bar with space for smaller acts.

Behind the main stage, in the space usually occupied by curtains and scenery, Bengough and his architects, Archer Humphryes Architects have created a whole new space, The Fly Tower, a kind of theatre behind the theatre, for more intimate concerts, private events or streaming shows, where acts can be viewed from below, above and behind. High in the ceiling they have left the old wooden wheel that was previously used to winch sets up and down. It’s a brilliant idea, which makes you wonder why more theatres don’t do it.

Behind that, reflecting another aspect of contemporary London culture, is a new private members’ club, The House of Koko. It’s a huge space, rolling over several floors, occupying an old pub and piano factory that backed onto the theatre. The walls are decorated with art by Frank Auerbach and Yoko Ono, there are pink quartz bars and intimate listening booths.

Elsewhere in the building is a gallery for NFTs. Earlier this month, somewhat inevitably, they announced a partnership with Luno, a “global cryptocurrency platform.” Amid Camden High Street’s kebab shops and hairdressers, it is almost shocking to find somewhere like this.

Bengough hopes the club will be somewhere artists can collaborate, record and broadcast, as well as mingle with fellow artists and other members, who will be approved by a committee and pay £1,500 a year (£800 per year for under 35s) for the privilege.

Since it opened on Boxing Day 1900 as The Camden Theatre, designed by the famous West End architect WGR Sprague, this building has always mirrored London’s cultural preoccupations. It began with opera, before reopening as a variety theatre in 1909. In 1911 it became a cinema, until the Second World War, when the Luftwaffe had a good crack at its domed roof.

In 1945 the BBC took it over as a studio and recorded The Goon Show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the Rolling Stones’ Live at the Camden Theatre show here, among countless others. The building was briefly slated for demolition in the early 70s before being given Grade II listed status. As the Music Machine, the venue was a home for punk and new-wave acts, including The Clash and The Jam.

By 1982 it had evolved into the Camden Palace, a concert venue-slash-nightclub that perfectly reflected the scuzzy, sticky-floored indie scene of the time. Madonna played her first UK gig here. (In the early 00s, its long standing Tuesday rock club night Feet First was one of this writer’s formative clubbing experiences.)

Bengough, an entrepreneur who had helped create the Lovebox festival with Groove Armada, took it over in 2004 and transformed it into Koko, which has been one of the capital’s leading venues for new music. Coldplay launched their X&Y album here, and it also hosted Kanye West, Amy Winehouse Prince among thousands of other artists.

“London at its best is a creative force,” Bengough says. “There’s a reason that a lot of our culture ends up travelling the world. Somewhere like Koko is a clash of music, but also of fashion, what people wear and how they enjoy themselves. Because we’re independent, we can take risks.”

Independence comes at a price. The revamp has cost more than £70m. Part of the funding has been provided by Sister, the production company and investment firm co-founded by Elizabeth Murdoch.

“I live in Primrose Hill and I have four kids who are all in their 20s, so Koko was often the place they’d be coming home from late” she says. “I didn’t know Olly, but when he was looking for a strategic and financial partner he pretty much had me at hello. His vision [for Koko] sort of sung to our souls. Then, the day we shook hands, that evening my daughter texted me a picture from her bike of the dome on fire. I think it’s going to be a wonderful reminder of the life force of the music industry.”

If you associate Camden Town with Spanish goths, tattoo parlours and stands selling cheap chow mein, Koko’s luxurious new incarnation might apear incongruous. Selling gig tickets to the public is one thing; luring London’s creatives from their fragrant bastions in Shoreditch and Soho is a more onerous prospect. Given the rocketing cost of living, will they even be able to afford another private members’ club card in their wallets?

“I think people haven’t worked out that Camden is a few minutes away from Granary Square (in King’s Cross), where there’s Sony, Universal, Google and Facebook,” Bengough says. “Then you walk five minutes to the station and you’re on your way to Paris. I’ve always loved Camden because it’s rough around the edges, but it’s quite safe. It’s edgy, but in a good way. I’ve never found it threatening. This has been seven years in development. I’m going to enjoy it.”

Over the past three years, a theatre that had already seen off two world wars, dilapidation, thousands of stamping feet and the worst excesses of rock n roll, has had to battle fire, flood and plague. Its toughest task of all might be convincing patrons that Mornington Crescent is somewhere sensible to spend a tenner on a gin and tonic.