Every couple of months between 1989 and 1993, the club night Kinky Gerlinky would illuminate London’s West End and take in the city’s most eccentric characters for a night of gleeful revelry. “It was born from Gerlinde Von Regensburg’s urge to throw a party to bring glamour back to the London club life during the Thatcher years of austerity which had spawned the punk scene,” Dick Jewell, the DoBeDo artist, and meticulous videographer of Kinky Gerlinky, says. “It was special to me as it was being run by my friends. With the entry policy and dress code on the door there was a feeling of togetherness within the club.”
Across its four years, Dick — a stalwart of the scene and a collaborator of Neneh Cherry and Judy Blame — diligently shot the night from start to finish, creating “a dialogue” between its loyal patrons and beloved performers through these videos. “I always felt at home in the club as I was among friends, and right from my first time of recording, I edited what I’d captured and made each night available for viewing via VHS copies.” Not shying away from the debauchery, Dick captured it all: “I’m not one for censorship and behaviour could get increasingly deranged as the nights progressed to the early hours. It’s all there.”
Which makes his 2002 film of the same name, an assemblage of 21 nights — over 200 hours of footage — all the more worth watching. “I feel it’s as important now, as when I made the films,” Dick says. “The fact that prejudice is born through fear and ignorance, to share experiences like this to a wider public is important, to see the equality of us as a human race independent of sexual orientation or ethnicity.”
Available on Le Cinema Club, which streams one film a week, Kinky Gerlinky can be watched until next Friday 3 July. “Initially I was prompted by the lockdowns to run this, thinking it was a way of giving everybody a virtual night out at a club, and now that social gathering rules have prolonged to include Gay Pride week, I feel it’s even more pertinent.”
KINKY GERLINKY by Dick Jewell is screening June 26 – July 2 on Le Cinema Club