Red Rose, London

129 Seven Sisters Road was home to the "Red Rose Club" from the mid 1980s until 2008. Leased to the North London Labour Party by a dairy the building acted as a hub for the Labour Party with MP Jeremy Corbyns office on the top floor flat. On the ground floor there were meeting rooms, a bar and the Red Rose Comedy Club. Ivor Dembina is the founder and was compere of the Red Rose Comedy Club. The club was host to many comedy acts including Jo Brand, Eddie Izzard, Sean Hughes, and John Hegley, the latter of whom Ivor Dembina describes as having ‘embodied the essence of the club’. Jan Whelan was an Islington Councillor for the Labour Party in the 1980s and later was a member of the Red Rose Club's committee. The club was a key venue in the emergence of what’s come to be called the London Comedy circuit. It ran throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but fell into financial trouble in the late 1990s and eventually had to close its doors in 2008.