For the over-forties, day-clubs are the new nightclubs

Cafe Mamba. Dellers Wharf. Chambers. Shout. Toad. Sterm’s. Truly these were the palaces of dreams. Or, more accurately, where dreams were not quite realised. The Taunton nightclubs of my youth were places of hopes and hormones, sticky floors and even stickier attempts at flirting. Sloanes, the Square, Ether, Aura. Actually all the same venue, rebranded again and again, before being converted into solicitors’ offices.

Like those dancefloors, my nightclub days should be over. And yet here I am, tacky with sweat and spilled alcopops, eardrums pounding, throwing the same shapes that proved so unattractive two decades ago, having the time of my life. And it’s only half past four in the afternoon.

Britain’s nightclubs are in crisis. They reached their peak 20 years ago, with around 3,000 throbbing fleshpots across the country. That’s down to 800 now, and falling still. Times change, and there is more competition from cocktail bars, craft brewers and endless themed game venues for drinkers who want something “to do”. Money is tight, there’s Netflix and who wants to go out and rub up against strangers in the dark when you can stay in and scroll through their timelines instead? Well, I do.

Which is why I’m at an Eighties throwback day-party, one of many such daytime events springing up across the country to help struggling clubs make some extra money from an older crowd with a disposable income, which can be disposed of readily on sugary cocktails and bottled beers. Where once such events used to be billed as for the “over-forties”, which sound a bit “divorcée discoteque”, now they’re cool. Apparently. Nightclubs become dayclubs for the parents, then they whip round the mop to remove the smell of Jo Malone perfume and home ownership before opening again for the kids.

It was a steamingly hot Saturday as we approached our Hampshire town’s only nightclub, walking down the slope the Waitrose delivery lorries take before turning right into the darkened entrance under the multi-storey. After an ID check – hilarious – it’s down a narrow passage towards a throbbing remix of Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now”. Thankfully we’re not. The first room, the botanic cocktail bar, is nicely busy. Volunteering to go to the bar, I hum along to A-ha and Duran Duran while being roundly ignored by the surly young chap who makes sure to serve any and every female customer. Instead of feeling annoyed, I revel in the nostalgia. Ah, struggling to get served in clubs. Just like the old days.

While enjoying not being served, I see a friend grabbing and necking a shot from a tray held aloft by a woman too young to be here without being on payroll. As she passes by, I do the same. She hollers back at me: “DAT’S FOR PAND!” I beep her contactless card reader. Being ripped off for a horrible shot. Just like the old days.

I have arranged a VIP booth for my wife’s birthday. This consists of three square tables against some banquette seating, on a raised platform. Accessing it requires unhooking a velvet rope, which we all declare to be right fancy. It also means a minimum spend, which we decide to take a run at by ordering a bottle of Prosecco, a bottle of gin and a bottle of rum, with sundry mixers. It arrives courtesy of the obligatory young woman in hotpants, the bucket illuminated by a fire safety-compliant “sparkler” (a flashing toy that you’d pay £8 for a bored child to hold during a panto). Non-VIPs look on in wonder. There is a massive explosion and we are showered with confetti. A lot of it goes in the mixers. We love it. Conscious that basically everyone else here is jealous of us VIPs and our largesse, we hide our booze under the banquette seating so we can head to the dancefloor.

The Dirty Disco Bar has an illuminated floor like in Saturday Night Fever (a harrowing film thay is much less fun and a lot more sexually violent than popular culture acknowledges). We politely queue to take a photo in front of a sequined neon sign that says “DISCO MADE ME DO IT”. We don’t know why.

Not for the first time, I approach the DJ booth. I used to do a bit of DJing back in Taunton. Vinyl only. Nu:jazz breakbeat if I was trying to be cool. Funk, disco and Fatman Scoop when I wasn’t. So I assume this knob-twiddler will recognise a kindred spirit. Instead he is busy setting up his next, surprisingly good mash-up and can’t hear me over the combined cacophony of his Eighties bangers and a PTA away day. So I type it out on my phone. “Can you say happy birthday to my wife again because she missed it earlier?” Thumbs up. Mission accomplished. Why didn’t I take a whiteboard and pen to clubs in the early 2000s?

Strictly speaking, having been born in 1982, I didn’t actually party to these tunes the first time. Better make up for it now. The atmosphere is great. I mean, it’s not the Hacienda or Shangri-La, it’s not “Es & Wizz” euphoric. But nor is it aggro. The peril and the pressure has been removed from the clubbing experience. Nobody here is looking for a fight. Or to pull. Instead people are here for the sole purpose of having fun. Unself-conscious, daft, liberating fun. It’s not even ironic. The videos of me dancing in a Fraggle Rock T-shirt are horrible to watch, but God, I was having fun. Just like the old days.

You start off going to school discos, too awkward to dance, and then real nightclubs, where they occasionally launch foam on you, which takes off three layers of skin. I remember once walking a mile and a half from Taunton town centre to get to the dual-carriageway adjacent Valbonne (formerly Night Owls) only to be turned away for looking underage. Great days. And then, without realising, suddenly you – and society – decide you’re too old. So the only time you get to dance is at weddings. You didn’t stop wanting to dance. There’s just nowhere to do it.

Over the course of a couple of hours my multitalented, leg-warmered wife manages to perfect the art of swinging her luminous plastic necklaces around her neck without becoming entangled in her specially crimped hair. A man in a Rentaghost T-shirt is treated like an A-list celebrity. Another man in a highly flammable multicoloured tracksuit checks his work emails.

When Bonnie Tyler tells the room to “turn around” we do as instructed. A man shuffles backwards past me, not quite moonwalking, singing “Let’s Dance” like Bowie is playing live. A woman with an inflatable microphone invites people to duet with her. She’s a harsh critic – if she doesn’t like your voice, she takes the mic back.

Back in the VIP area, another rum and coke. As I down the dregs I find a metal bottle opener at the bottom. Ah! So that’s where it went. More mixers arrive from the unsmiling but efficient woman in hotpants. It feels the most like being in a club in the small hours when I throw the rum remnants on the floor so I can use the silver plastic tumbler for Prosecco.

As the clock ticks down, a frisson of excitement. How will the “night” end? It turns out they play “Simply the Best” and a man in a hi-vis jacket comes round to tell us to bugger off. We emerge blinking into the light. It is 8.07pm. Now starving, we march towards the sort of curry house we are confident will let us in. They do. We are fed, watered and paid up within an hour, and home in bed by 10pm. Achy, tired, smelly, smiling. Just like the old days.

[Further reading: An approaching comet augurs a Burnham ascendant]