No Siesta 'til Club Fiesta - Softcover

Anderson, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908431091 ISBN 13: 9781908431097

Publisher: ACM Retro, 2012

Synopsis

Critics laughed when Jim and Keith Lipthorpe unveiled audacious plans to turn a derelict cinema in suburban Teesside into an entertainment Mecca to rival the best of Las Vegas. Fiesta Fawns would be their answer to the Playboy Bunny Girls and this new brand of venue would be a byword for palatial luxury. Within weeks of opening they were looking for bigger and better. They couldn't have got any bigger. Their Sheffield Fiesta, "the biggest nightclub in Europe", opened in the summer of 1970. The glittering, purpose-built venue cost a staggering £500,000. The Lipthorpes were the cabaret kings of England for over a decade. It was their spell as semi-pro musicians in the late fifties and early sixties that demonstrated the gaping hole in the market for a more sophisticated brand of entertainment as the country finally moved away from post-war austerity. They were the inspiration for Batley Variety Club and helped launch the careers of a host of national stars spanning Les Dawson to Marti Caine and came nearer to landing a gig by Elvis Presley than any other UK venue. Biting recession, industrial disputes, changing entertainment tastes, and the rising fees of big name stars called time on the dream that came crashing down in spectacular style for the Lipthorpes in 1976 but both venues battled on for a few more years before the final curtain fell on both Fiesta clubs in the early 1980s. No Siesta 'Til Club Fiesta tells the story of two venues in UK that changed the face of entertainment forever.

Edition details

• Publisher: ACM Retro
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908431091
• ISBN 13: 9781908431097
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 172