Director: Daniel Howard-Baker
Daniel Howard-Baker’s 30-minute documentary tells a very familiar story about the Rave scene taking place at the end of the 1980s and the early 90s. Ex-ravers talk about the communal joy of dancing, the inclusiveness of the club, and the sense of euphoria where everyone loved each other. This is the way we remember Rave now. However, what W: A Return to Oz has to its advantage is the wonderful footage of nights out at the Warehouse club in Plymouth.
Starting with music, sampling the voice of Margaret Thatcher, we’re taken from the long queues outside the club located on the insalubrious Union Street, through the ticket check, up the stairs and onto the balcony that looks down on the dancefloor full of loved-up dancers, gurning away. The DJs play from inside a silver egg-shaped booth that looks like a tripped-out oval glitterball.
One of the Warehouse’s promoters discusses the early days when coachloads of partygoers from Cornwall and Devon came to the club, lucky enough to walk straight in without joining the other thousands in the line, five people wide, still waiting to be let in. Even with a capacity of 3,000 (Warehouse could be considered one of the first superclubs), many in the queue went home disappointed.
The fortunate ones are a mixed bunch; there are yuppies, townies, Goths and gay people. Because of the Ecstasy, everyone gets along despite being from such disparate backgrounds. We’re told this, but it’s not hard to imagine either watching the exuberant and energised dancers. At the end of a typical night, the houselights would come on, resulting in the crowd hollering for one more. Still, with the lights up, we hear the opening bars of Rozalla’s Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good), and there was, indeed, a small window when that song ruled the clubs, before it became too commercial.
And this move from subculture to popular culture is perhaps responsible for the death of the Warehouse, too, as soon everyone seemed to be raving. Corporate clubs opened for corporate-looking people adhering to the strict dress codes. The footage of the Warehouse in its final days shows the dancefloor uncannily empty.
Howard-Baker packs a lot into his short film, and it acts as another nostalgic piece of evidence that the Rave scene was the most exciting youth subculture of all. But will we ever see a rebuttal to this agreed-upon version of events? We look back with neon-tinted glasses and forget that these times weren’t perhaps the best. Outside the club, we had Thatcher, AIDS and Clause 28. Inside, meanwhile, no one longer talks about the expense of raving (the entry fee, the price of pills at £15 each) or the increasing fear of police raids and the fights between rival drug dealers. But perhaps we forgot about all that when we waved our hands in the air, waiting for the beat to drop.
Return to Oz is screening on 13th February 2026 at Ashburton Arts Centre, Ashburton, Devon from 7pm and on 6th March 2026 at Saltash Studios, Saltash, Cornwall from 7:30pm. Details: here.
