From Catholic Roots to Ibiza Nights: How a Wild 90s Club Show Transformed My Perspective on Life

SQUISHED high above a 10,000-strong crowd in a gold mini dress, I clutched the nightclub railing as I ordered the camera to keep rolling at 3am.

Down on the stage, the two performers in doctors and nurses outfits suddenly stopped dancing – before stripping off and doing something so shocking before thousands of ravers and I froze on the spot.

In September, Manumission is due back for a three-day revival called Le Weekend Manumission Credit: Alamy Sam Brick filmed a raunchy reality TV favourite Ibiza Uncovered in the Nineties Credit: supplied

They were having sex – full, unsimulated passion right in front of the crowd, and right in front of my lens.

We were filming in the of 1997, capturing the hedonistic orbit of Manumission – a legendary club night on the White Isle that drew in everyone from and the Happy Mondays to Jean Paul Gaultier and .

One resident DJ called it the Studio 54 of our generation; clubbers described it as Cirque du Soleil on acid.

On this particular night, the theme was doctors and nurses. co-owner Mike McKay was the doctor, while his girlfriend Claire Davies, then just 22, was a nurse.

The other medical “staff” looked more oo-err Carry On than Casualty in cleavage-baring tops and teeny rubber skirts.

I’d look down as thousands danced – blissed out, high on life or something else – beneath the lights. It felt less like a nightclub and more like an amphitheatre, so enormous you could – and did – lose friends and work colleagues for hours.

Now, 29 summers after we filmed Ibiza Uncovered – and roughly 30 years after I devised the idea with a friend – Claire is publishing her debut memoir, The Motel: High Times in 90s Ibiza, this Friday.

In September, Manumission is due back for a three-day revival called Le Weekend Manumission.

Looking back at it all now, it still feels completely surreal.

When I, working as a TV producer, pitched Ibiza Uncovered to my bosses, I did not expect to find myself at 26 in Ibiza filming raunchy scenes like this. I was raised a Catholic and had only had two boyfriends by then. I couldn’t quite believe what I was watching.

After the public deed was done, they all jumped naked into the pool.
Smutty? Actually, no. Joyous? Dare I say it – yes.

But the final sexual spectacle on the main stage wasn’t the only “act” to enjoy.

On the way to the loos, I once spotted naked women tethered together by their collars and writhing on a huge bed.

Another time, on a podium, two women were handcuffed together, kissing and fondling one another.

A famously well-endowed contortionist performed oral sex on himself. One female performer was known for breathing fire from between her legs.

Sex was not hidden in a dark corner. It was centre stage: part cabaret, part provocation and part political statement.

‘Manumission’ was considered one of the most crazy parties in the world Credit: Alamy The Nineties were a glorious time to be alive and discover sides of your sexuality you didn’t know existed Credit: Getty

Only now do I realise how filming scenes inside Privilege, the world’s largest nightclub that housed , totally transformed how I saw sex, clubbing and society for the rest of my life.

Did I change that summer? Of course. The 20 or so of us on the production team did too. There were affairs, flings, one night stands.

One morning I woke up with the most beautiful naked Ibizan man next to me in my single bed. I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and he only spoke a smattering of English. But it didn’t matter in the heat of the moment.

What happened in Ibiza very much stayed in Ibiza.

The Nineties were a glorious time to be alive and discover sides of your sexuality you didn’t know existed. In 1997, there were no camera phones or Instagram stories. Nobody held a screen aloft all night. There was no risk of a recording going viral.

I spent the rest of my 20s single, travelling the world for work and enjoyed countless sexual liaisons, and I have that summer in Ibiza to thank for my open attitude towards sex and love.

That era was an irreplaceable slice of history – which brings us to why Claire felt compelled to put pen to paper.

She says she wrote her account because Manumission’s history had become “polluted”.

The Claire I filmed with was shy, with a huge smile and quiet, steely determination. Mike had a guru’s intense charisma, while his instantly likeable brother Andy and partner Dawn Hindle made things happen.

Andy and Dawn supplied the business nous; Mike and Claire, the untamed creative force. The brothers regularly clashed, yet their alchemy created one of the greatest club nights of the late 20th century.

— meaning the formal freeing of an enslaved person — began in Manchester’s Gay Village in 1994, moving to Ibiza in 1995.
Mike’s vision was Manumission-on-the-Mediterranean, a place of “magic, drag queens, sex, dwarfs and art”. It was always about the show more than the music.

While other promoters targeted the obvious weekend slots, Manumission took over Mondays — making it THE night to go to.

Manumission — meaning the formal freeing of an enslaved person — began in Manchester’s Gay Village in 1994, moving to Ibiza in 1995 Credit: Getty Manumission took over Mondays — making it THE night to go to

Privilege, between Ibiza Town and San Antonio, held around 10,000 people and was recognised by Guinness as the world’s largest nightclub. Inside was Wonderland: dancers in cages, drag performers on stilts, aerialists overhead and vast windows through which dawn appeared.

Every week brought a new theme and different slogan T-shirt – I wish I had kept mine. Superstar DJs including Fatboy Slim performed, but the decks were almost beside the point.

Putting on a show week in, week out was unpredictable. One night, massive red drapes caught fire. Some ravers were so used to pyrotechnics and chaos that they carried on dancing, assuming it was part of the show.

I filmed it and, trust me, the panic was real.

Because Ibiza Uncovered was broadcast while we were filming, Sky viewers watched fresh mayhem every Thursday – then booked their flights. The series elevated Manumission’s notoriety and Claire has said that our coverage brought thousands of young Brits onto a dance floor that had previously attracted an international, rebellious crowd. Mike recently said our access “should not have happened”.

Come on, guys! Why be snobbish?

The ethos of Manumission was about freedom for everyone to experience Ibiza’s magic. I even heard a rumour that and – in London that summer filming Eyes Wide Shut – had flown in after watching the programme. I could never verify it, but the fact it sounded plausible tells you how fast Manumission’s fame was spreading.

There’s something about Ibiza’s fizzing energy. The moment you stepped out of the airport, the usual sexual rules seemed to loosen.

Young people clubbers dancing at the Manumission night inside Privilege nightclub Credit: Alamy The creators of Manumission, Mike and Claire Credit: Getty

Our crew was hardly immune to the island’s spell. People shook off their inhibitions — and sometimes their relationships. I knew straight-laced colleagues who had affairs and many more who enjoyed no-strings sex, long before “situationships” and “booty calls” became everyday expressions. Yet it wasn’t all fleeting encounters: I also met people there who became lifelong friends. Ibiza accelerated intimacy.

And, to be fair, you didn’t need to enter Manumission to experience the island’s sexual freedom. Club 18-30 holidaymakers threw themselves into wet T-shirt competitions, booze cruises and foam parties because “we’re here for a good time, not a long time.” I became accustomed to seeing strangers having sex beneath the foam. I lost count of the knickers scattered across the floor.

Yet there was a wonderfully romantic flipside. I also witnessed countless couples become engaged, with men dropping to one knee in the middle of a nightclub – or even behind the DJ decks. In Ibiza, casual sex and declarations of everlasting love existed side by side.

I have zero regrets that my friend and I created the series because, back in the early 1990s, Wish You Were Here…? and Whicker’s World ignored my generation recognised.

Back in the Nineties, we didn’t have to worry about ending up on TikTok or being judged by an algorithm after a night out. We were present, we were bold, and we were free.

I feel for women in their 20s these days. Recent studies show almost half (48 per cent) of Gen Z women report having zero interest in sex, with many actively avoiding intimacy altogether. Between the pressure of constant camera phones, body anxiety, and the soulless nature of modern dating apps, young women today are being robbed of pure, uninhibited sexual liberation.

What’s embedded in my DNA today, nearly 30 years on, is that sex needn’t be a guilty pleasure. No, it doesn’t have to happen within a relationship.

Yes, you can feel the magnetic pull of a person, have glorious, unfiltered sex, and walk away with zero regrets. I just hope the young women of today get to experience that kind of freedom at least once in their lives.

That summer broke every rule I’d been taught, and thank God it did.

Manumission changed my life, my sex drive, and my entire world view – and if I could pull on that gold mini dress and do it all over again tonight, I’d do it in a heartbeat.