Porno Palace

Located in the Soho area of Londons' West End. The beautiful 5-storey brick built Regency mid-terrace house was built in the early-1800’s and was operating in the 1860’s as the headquarters of the Communist funded International Working Men’s Association. In the 1950’s it became a striptease club named Club Tropicana.

In October 1961 comedian Peter Cook took it over and it reopened as the Establishment Club, which presented top names on the comedy circuit, including Barry Humphries, Dudley Moore and Frankie Howerd and American comic Lenny Bruce (who, following his appearance at the club, was banned from entering the UK). It was a private members club and attracted Royalty as well as many famous people and top name stars film, theatre and music. Also, its' private club status allowed uncensored performances which were banned by the Lord Chamberlain (At that time all public performances on the stage had to submit their content to the Lord Chamberlain for approval, prior to being performed).

In the early-1970’s it returned to being a striptease club. By 1975 it had become an adult cinema club named Exciting Cinema Club, billing itself as “London’s Most Luxurious Cinema Club”. There were two screens with Screen 1 having 120-seats with 16mm projection and screen 2 with 50-seats and 8mm projection. As it was a cinema club, for ‘members only’ it screened hardcore sex films. Membership was gained by filling in an application form, paying £1 ‘for administration’ and a membership valid for 1 year was approved 1 hour later. The club had air conditioning, luxury seats and a bar.

By the end of the 1970’s, the sex cinema industry was feeling the effects of VHS tapes making viewing at home popular. The Exciting Cinema Club began screening even harder hard core movies which included female-animal sex action as well as group sex.

In 1981, the Porno Palace sex cinema club, located in nearby Frith Street (it has its own page on Cinema Treasures) closed down and relocated into the Exciting Cinema Club building and continued the policy of hardcore sex films. It was raided by the police on several occasions and was eventually closed down.

The building has since been used by various restaurants and nightclubs over the years. Since March 2008 it has operated as a bar/restaurant named Zebrano.

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