The Madonna Arms

Madonna and her wife Guy Ritchie have recently bought even more London property, with the new addition of their local boozer, the West End’s Punchbowl, for the tidy sum of £2.5m. Though it’s not most people’s idea of a ‘local’, being smack bang in the middle of Mayfair, Madge apparently has been very taken by the place for some time and just ‘adores’ beer. So we can assume when Mr and Mrs Madonna are not swanning around Wiltshire in flat-caps and britches, shooting pheasant, they’ll be in there.

Much as I loathe Madonna and her pseudo-gangster husband, I’m quite excited at the prospect of her pulling pints behind the bar; plus you can’t fault her dedication to the great institution that is the British pub. There is some suggestion that said institution is under threat from chains and sensible gastropubs. I’d dismissed it as the older, wiser, hardened alcoholics fear mongering, but the bastardisation of south London’s The Amersham Arms was the final straw for me.

Above: How Madge might look behind her bar. If you’d had A LOT of beer

Late last year, The Am closed for renovation after being bought by the group that’s venues include the oh-so-edgy Lock Tavern. Having studied at Goldsmiths ‘cool’ College, it had always been a haven for me, away from some of the weeping to my guitar or grindie/electro/nu rave violations hosted by neighbouring New Cross pubs. To say that I’m not partial to nights of unadulterated art school kid pretentiousness would be a filthy lie, but sometimes I just wanted a quiet pint and maybe some peanuts. This was pretty much guaranteed at The Am and as soon as my friend started working there it became a second living room. For her, certainly, the regulars were like family. Intimidating, liver-damaged, borderline racist family, but family nonetheless. I worried where they would go once The Am closed, having nightmares of them sloping off home to drink alone in a darkened room – or worse, becoming teetotal.

Getting back to my point The Amersham now looks like the ubiquitous gastropub by day, people-friendly bar by night – leather sofas, fleur-de-lis wallpaper, soft lighting, clean surfaces. The renovation also included the adjoining Catapult Club venue and the new novel idea of the Take Courage art gallery, which takes up the top floor. Intrigued, I made my first and only visit back to the new Am. Giving up on the queue for the bar, I went next door to a piss-poor electro night where I watched a man DJ in a Transformers mask. It was so bad, I wasn’t quite sure if it was real. Horrified, I went outside for a smoke where a bloke in a (no doubt ‘ironic’ shell suit) gave me some badges emblazoned with the word ‘milkman’. “It’s for my graphic design project,” he said in a mockney accent. I left straight after that.

Does it play host to some exceptional bands and stand-up comedians? Yes. Will it do wonders for the culture of the local area? Yes. Will you have to have a slash in a vomit splattered toilet? Not as often. But all this is besides the point. A pub should be where you can nurse a pint or five and have enough room on your table for pub tricks and empty crisp packets, not scented candles and piles of flyers. Sometimes you just want a good old-fashioned pub, where the floor is sticky, the drinks are cheap and if you pass out in a drunken stupor nobody will judge you.

JOANNA HUNT