# Pleasure Gardens, cabaret, nightclubs, rave & 350 years of the Big Night Out

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-4162240/pleasure-gardens-cabaret-nightclubs-rave-350-years-of-the-big-night-out
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-4162240/pleasure-gardens-cabaret-nightclubs-rave-350-years-of-the-big-night-out.md
Podcast: [Word In Your Ear](https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-4162240)
Published: 2026-05-07T16:55:29+00:00
Episode link: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5ff0586154e2a73589267809/e/69fcc4012b71c054a35b3a4f/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/word-in-your-ear-4162240/episodes/pleasure-gardens-cabaret-nightclubs-rave-350-years-of-the-big-night-out
Duration seconds: 1811

## Resource

Mass commercial nightlife began in a Japanese Pleasure Garden in 1657 and it’s blossomed ever since – via Victorian Vauxhall, cabaret Paris, jazz-driven New Orleans, flappers, speakeasies, moonshine, Studio 54 and the rave palaces of the 21st Century. Imogen Willetts tracks its riotous evolution in ‘Up All Night: A History of Going Out’ and wonders if the invention of the iPhone has burst the balloon. She talks to us here about …   ... the Tango, the Can-Can: dances that got you arrested   … how bourgeois French ‘slummers’ found a taste of danger   … the heady allure in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens as an escape from Victorian squalor   … how Anita Berber’s chloroform ballet shocked and delighted Weimar Berlin   … when dancing was a mating ritual and the impact of Dating Apps     … democracy on the dancefloor: the unrepeatable mix of punters and celebrities at Studio 54   … and how the invention of the electric light got people going out and the iPhone made them stay home   Order ‘Up All Night’ here: https://www.weidenfeldandnicolson.co.uk/titles/imogen-willetts/up-all-night/9781399617093/ Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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