Word In Your Ear Pleasure Gardens, cabaret, nightclubs, rave & 350 years of the Big Night Out
May 7, 2026
Imogen Willetts, author of Up All Night and cultural historian of nightlife, traces 350 years of going out from 1657 Yoshihara to Studio 54 and modern raves. She explores pleasure gardens, cabaret Paris, Jazz-era New Orleans, scandalous dances like the Can-Can and Tango, Weimar decadence, the electric light’s role, and how smartphones and dating apps have reshaped nights out.
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Earliest Commercial Nightlife Began In 1657 Edo
- Nightlife as a designed commercial night environment began in Edo's Yoshihara in 1657.
- Yoshihara offered night banquets, courtesans and conspicuous consumption as an escape from a male-dominated, closed society.
Vauxhall Gardens As A Riverborne Escape
- Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens offered Victorian Londoners a rural-feeling escape from squalor reached by water taxis.
- Attendees queued at stone river steps, took boats and left dung-filled, dangerous London for illuminated gardens and entertainment.
Electricity Created A Goldilocks Nightlife Era
- The 120-year 'goldilocks' nightlife era ran roughly 1890 to 2010 between widespread electricity and smartphones.
- Electricity made streets safer and venues viable, enabling sustained urban nightlife cultures.
