A door off Drury Lane leads to a riot of 1990s pop culture – proof that in an age of streaming and scrolling, nothing beats the magic of being there
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Drury Lane is at the heart of London’s Theatreland. Famous musicals and plays – Disney’s Hercules, Operation Mincemeat and Mamma Mia! – transport audiences to a fantasy world of action, comedy and romance. Recently, I went to Drury Lane not for a live performance, but to visit a video store. Next to the Gillian Lynne Theatre, where My Neighbour Totoro was showing, was a shop that was a facsimile of a Blockbuster – the stalwart American video rental chain that once formed part of the cultural landscape across the UK.
Going into a Blockbuster in the 1990s instantly connected you to a world of cultural opportunity, the chance to immerse yourself in the new movies that had crossed the Atlantic – mega-hit productions like Top Gun or Jurassic Park, and the occasional British film like Austin Powers. The distinctive blue and yellow branding and the rows of blocky, empty VHS boxes set the stage for consumption, creating a clean, modern space with a single purpose – to bring you viewing pleasure.
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You first browsed the shelves, ummed and ahhed over what to watch – maybe something with Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks or Sharon Stone. This browse was the analogue version of swiping through the Netflix home page. Although three decades ago there was not the same tyranny of endless choice that now makes deciding what to watch a chore of its own. Back then, once you’d selected your title, you presented a membership card and the clerk retrieved the loaned tape, encased in an oversized Blockbuster-branded box, for enjoyment at home.
The video store on Drury Lane wasn’t a real Blockbuster and didn’t have any VHS tapes to take away. Rather, it was a portal for another consumer opportunity. In the corner of the room was a Pepsi vending machine. Rather than dispensing soda, this illuminated signage was the front for a hidden door. What came next was showtime – an immersive, time-travelling experience that sped me back to the 1990s. Like Alice passing through the looking glass, I descended into Bunga90, a theatrical world of nostalgia – an amazing cocktail bar and restaurant that was a pastiche of the cultural world of three decades ago.
As a celebration of consumption, it was a hyper-coloured, make-believe world saturated with neons and a jarring primary palette. Every wall was plastered with posters and stickers from the era – WWF wrestlers, Friends, the Spice Girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looked out. The drinks list was a celebration of kitsch, with Smash Hits cocktails served in Britney Spears, Fresh Prince, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) and brick phone-shaped vessels. For amusement, there was period-era karaoke and arcade machines loaded with Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Bunga90 was a riotous, immersive revelation.
Guests fit into two demographics: older Millennials (like me), who came for the memories – including social media fitness guru Joe Wicks, who was there the night I visited – and a younger crowd of Gen Zs, for whom the retro, vintage aesthetic was a novel and Instagrammable experience. The version of the 90s they were encountering was no more a true reflection of the age than the world of Austin Powers, which I saw on VHS in ’97, was an honest representation of 60s London. That this was a phantasmagoria didn’t dampen anyone’s enjoyment.
One takeaway for me, on a geopolitical register, was how unashamedly American the 1990s felt. This was the transatlantic innocence of a pre-September 11 world, where climate change was a marginal political issue and the internet was in its dial-up infancy. A more critical stance on US politics and culture – from George W Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through to Donald Trump’s stance on every issue from migration to climate and Gaza – has dulled European affection for Americana.
Secondly, my trip down Drury Lane reminded me of the central importance of place in consumption. Today, we live in a world of Netflix and Disney+, which offer infinitely more efficient platforms for viewing films than the laborious video-shop experience. Despite the ever-present opportunity to see any type of visual culture via streaming and social media, nothing can compete with the real-life theatre of a traditional play or the multi-sensory experience of a great bar or restaurant.
Culture has a geography based on physical spaces, such as London’s West End. There was a real joy to be found in the act of browsing the pretend video store before the descent into the wild realm of Bunga90. While it is brilliant that this bar exists in the centre of the capital’s Theatreland, this success story feels at odds with broader national trends. At a time when playhouses and pubs across the country are facing existential challenges and closing, there is a need for more accessible physical spaces that can learn from and appeal to the social media universe – but create unforgettable real-world experiences of their own.
