Simon Danczuk talks about Dolphin Square with Marc Glendening at The Wheatsheaf

The Sohemian Society’s final event at The Wheatsheaf pub takes place this month, before the famous watering hole undergoes a refurbishment along with a change of ownership.

Guest speaker on Wednesday 9 April will be former MP Simon Danczuk, co-author of Scandal at Dolphin Square, a Notorious History.

“I made Dolphin Square my home from 2017 and Fitzrovia and Soho soon became my playground,” he says.

“Dinner somewhere along Charlotte Street, beers in the Marquis of Granby, and late night drinks in Gerry’s Club on Dean Street are a perfect night out for me. And as our book shows, these places are all inexplicably linked. Many residents, over the years, have socialised in the West End and gone back home to Dolphin Square, it’s an easy cab ride, or even stroll, passed parliament, no more than 40 minutes.

“Barbara Windsor, Sid James, lots of theatre types, politicians, military personnel, even royalty, used Dolphin Square, Fitzrovia and Soho for fun, love and work. Though, as you’d expect, there could also be a darker side linking the three places, from adultery, through to crime, and even murder. Some of the true stories from Dolphin Square are as much about Fitzrovia and Soho.

“I’m so pleased to be speaking about our Scandal at Dolphin Square book at the Sohemian Society because of the links between this gigantic block of flats, built in the 1930s, and the development of the West End, very much Fitzrovia and Soho, all surviving in one form or another even through to today — what a history,” he says.

Danczuk will be in conversation and holding a question and answer session with Sohemian Society co-founder Marc Glendening.

The last evening at The Wheatsheaf will be a special, albeit sad, occasion for the Sohemians who have made the venue their home for over 20 years.

“Leaving the Wheatsheaf will be a wrench for the Sohemian Society, which held its opening event there on the 4 December 2003,” says writer Paul Willetts.

“I was its first speaker. The venue had been chosen by the Society’s founders — Marc Glendening and Ian Farrow — because of its association with the writer Julian Maclaren-Ross (1912-64), who was the subject of the book I was promoting. Throughout the 1940s, Maclaren-Ross was a fixture in the downstairs Saloon Bar.”

Over 20 years the events have attracted well-known speakers, including George Melly, and home secretary-turned-diarist Alan Johnson. The audiences featured Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing, the wartime diarist Joan Wyndham, the punk singer Howard Devoto, and the former MI9 employee, actress and Soho character Ann Valery. 

It may be farewell to The Wheatsheaf, but the Sohemians will continue their events up the road in the largest of the very comfortable upstairs function rooms at the Fitzroy Tavern, where on Tuesday 6 May there will be a talk about George Orwell. And they have launched a podcast.

The Scandalous History of Dolphin Square: Simon Danczuk in conversation with Mark Glendening, upstairs at The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1JB, at 6.30pm, Wednesday 9 April 2025. Tickets: £11 in advance.

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