World-famous DJ Barry Can’t Swim has taken his house music repertoire to one of North London’s oldest snooker clubs.
Barry, real name Joshua Mainnie, performed a one hour set in the Mildmay Club’s snooker hall in Stoke Newington earlier this month.
This appearance is a stark contrast to the award-winning Scottish DJ’s headline sets at both Glastonbury and All Points East over the last two years.
The hall, which is on Newington Green, boasts an impressive 138 year history.
Paul O’Callaghan, who has worked at the Mildmay for 16 years, was a last-minute extra on the shoot, which has racked up more than 260,000 views so far.
He said: “Barry was a really nice guy. Where he’s from in Scotland he knows these kinds of clubs from his childhood.
“He was really impressed to see a place like this in London.”
Barry is taking part in a wider trend that sees house music DJs filming their sets in a beautiful or unusual place, for listeners to engage with online.
Barry described the experience on his social media.
He wrote: “Whenever I get the opportunity I love playing sets like this. Slower BPM, curated and intentional, just playing tunes that I love.”
O’Callaghan said the whole shoot was not a traditional production.
He added: “There wasn’t any real ‘set’ as such, it was a lot more fluid. I didn’t even realise we were actually being filmed.”
It is not the first time the club’s nine full-size tables, gas light fittings and walls lined with vintage cues have been a famous backdrop.
The room has featured in TV series Killing Eve, the Amy Winehouse inspired ‘Back to Black’ series and John Newman’s video for Love Me Again, which alone has clocked up more than 300 million views on YouTube.
O’Callaghan suggested why producers keep coming back.
He said: “It lends itself. A bit of smoke, cigarettes, that gangster feel. Film people go mad for it.”
Snooker clubs across the UK have struggled to survive in the last 20 years, with giants of the scene like Rileys falling from 165 clubs in the ‘90s to just 13 today.
Despite this, business at the Mildmay is booming.
From a low of 250 members 15 years ago, the club now has over 3,500, and continues to bring some of showbiz’s biggest names through its doors.
Featured image credit: Andrew Whitehead
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