Party on the Tube

If you are a tourist with a fairly old tube map, or you last come to London over five years ago, you may be wondering what happened to Aldwych tube station.

The station opened in 1907 and was meant to be a brilliant terminus for the Great Northern and Strand railway. In fact no one hardly ever used it as it was quicker to walk along the Strand between Aldwych and Holborn. The station closed in 1994 and the Aldwych is now a happening venue for all sorts of showbiz parties and video shoots.

Music videos shot there include ones by Kate Bush, Suede, see story below, The Prodigy, Boy George and Aqua (remember the video for the song "Turn Back Time" from the excellent film Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. That was a great concept for a film where catching or missing a tube has a massive effect on your life. Great scenes of London and Gwyneth Paltrow's English/London accent is truly excellent, she should have got her Oscar for that!). There's a good series of ads (on the Underground - where else!) about it, saying that catching the next train could change your life, and that speaking to the person next to you could change your life etc etc. Talking to the people next to you is not really advised, because if they talk back they are likely to be mad!! People just don't speak to each other on the Tube as a rule (see my tube rules page)

Many thanks to Birgitte Curry for telling me in detail about another pop video that was filmed on the tube: "I am a danish tube-aholic (lived many years in london) and still go over there once a year.

"Anyway, I'm a Suede fan, and I'd hoped to see mention of their "Saturday Night" video, because it was shot in a disused tunnel (opposite platform 4) at Holborn in January 1997. I have been there myself (the door into the tunnel was slightly ajar, so ...) and the tunnel was lit, so got the most fantastic photos of the spot where Brett Anderson (their lead singer stood.

"Also They have two songs with underground titles: Jubilee and Waterloo. And, they mention the following in some of their songs: Seven Sisters, Circle Line, Hounslow, Heathrow, White City. There's only one in the band with a driver's license (Mat Osman) so they all rely on the underground, and legend has that Brett (who writes most of the songs) travels around the underground with a little recorder, just in case he suddenly gets a brill idea for a song.

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