In Conversation: Daniel Howard-Baker on Bringing Plymouth’s Warehouse Back to Life
Our Community Reporter Matt Fleming takes a nostalgic deep dive into one of Plymouth’s most iconic nightclubs with film maker Daniel Howard-Baker. For those who were there, the name ‘The Warehouse’ brings back the electric pulse of Union Street in its heyday: the queues, the lights, the music that defined a generation.
Now, Daniel is reviving those memories on screen with W: A Return to Oz — a powerful new film documentary that captures the spirit, sound and cultural legacy of the club that shaped Plymouth’s nightlife and helped put the South West on the rave map.
Remember that feeling? The excitement building up in your bones as you waited in that massive queue on Union Street outside potentially the greatest nightclub in Plymouth’s history? And then the butterflies you got when you entered The Warehouse and its relentless beats began to pulsate through your entire body?
Do you then remember walking out into that chasm with its huge dance floor and its egg-shaped DJ booth in the middle? You’d canter in and witness a sea of people whooping and dancing like they’d never danced before. And then you’d be going for hours until you eventually had to leave and go back to your ‘normal life’... until next Saturday, of course.
Image: Dance Planet
That was The Warehouse in its heyday. A unique Plymouth club that was a key catalyst for the development and popularity of rave music in the South West — and far beyond — in the late 1980s and 1990s. Words can’t describe how revolutionary and important this club was to young ravers, Plymouth’s nightlife scene and the city’s general musical taste during that hedonistic era.
I had the good fortune to enjoy a handful of crazy nights at the venue as a teenager — and I’ve now been able to relive some of those memories via the medium of film.
All Black and White Images: Steve Todd (instagram: steveamoof)
“W: A Return to Oz” premiered at Plymouth Arts Cinema inside Arts University Plymouth on Sunday 5 October 2025. This is a 35-minute short documentary film that sees all those Warehouse memories rushing back — as it did for the sellout crowd of former ravers ‘now of a certain age’ that caught the premier.
Image: Kev 'Little-Kev' Grayling / Mad Cow Productions
The documentary, directed by local filmmaker Daniel Howard-Baker, is raw, unapologetic and ultimately a nostalgic ride that takes you back to those heady days, thanks to the reams of archive footage that Howard-Baker managed to get hold of from ravers across Plymouth and further afield.
Image: Paper Edits / Wasp Factory
The piece also juxtaposes footage from inside the derelict building right now, creating a slightly dark and yearning overtone to the work. In short, if you used to grab your whistle, water and glow-sticks and dance the night away at this legendary Plymouth club, you need to see this film — and try to spot yourself in there.
If you missed the premier, don’t fret — plans are afoot for another screening in Plymouth towards the end of the year. Those plans are not yet confirmed but check out the end of this story for details on how to make sure you know as soon as the screening date and location are released so you can snap up your tickets.
Historical club
The Warehouse opened in Union Street in 1988 — just as the acid house music scene was peaking. It was one of a handful of nightclubs inside the iconic Millennium Complex, which was first a cinema back in the 1930s and then housed a number of clubs over the years — some groundbreaking, some not.
Image: Kinolibrary
The Warehouse raged on for a decade, closing as a rave venue in September 1998, however the space did reopen shortly afterwards as Millennium — a far more chart-pleasing kind of affair. That club and the whole complex shut its doors in 2004, later making way for a GOD TV pledge to turn it into a conference and events hub… which never happened.
The complex — which also housed other clubs like Blondz, Monroe’s and Club Oz (from which the documentary gets its name due to the fact revellers sometimes used to call The Warehouse by that name) — has been derelict for years now, however Stonehouse-based Nudge Community Builders have been working on the site since 2017, transforming it once again into a space for live music, as well as workshops and other amenities for young people and the local community.
Image: Paper Edits / Wasp Factory
Howard-Baker’s film features ‘a man, locked and loaded with film tape, exploring an abandoned rave house, once known as The Warehouse, that was once the beating heart of the South West’s clubland’. “Originally,” he says, “this was not meant to be a documentary about the Warehouse. It was meant to be about all the different abandoned clubs on Union Street — but I quickly realised it was going to be way more than, let’s say, a 20-minute short to do all of them so I chose the Warehouse.
“In early 2024,” he continues, “I made a Facebook post asking people to come forward and see if they wanted to do any voiceover or add archive footage to the documentary and lots of people responded. Many people were keen — and I also got in touch with DJ David Green, DJ Andy Howard and many other important people from the venue’s heyday. It all came together fairly quickly and I thank everyone who made this documentary possible.”
Daniel Howard-Baker (Director / Editor) (Left) and Claire Calverley (Actor, one of the voice over contributors for the film) (Right) Image by Steve Todd (instagram: steveamoof)
Homegrown director
Howard-Baker was born in Luton but moved to Plymouth when he was four years old. He grew up here and went to the University of Westminster in London aged 18 to study for a film degree. He worked in the capital for a couple of years after he graduated before returning to Plymouth in 2023 to ‘explore the filmmaking avenues of the South West’.
The 25-year-old has a solid body of work behind him already, including mostly fiction shorts as director, editor and other roles behind the camera. But “W: A Return to Oz” is his first major project — and the screening on 5th October 2025 was his first-ever premier. “It was also my first-ever sellout show,” he says, “so I’m really pleased with that.”
Image: Kev 'Little-Kev' Grayling / Mad Cow Productions
The director calls The Warehouse ‘a wonderland’. He says: “It seemed like an impossible fantasy land that may be foreign to people of my age now — a utopian enclave in Union Street that sat among a cesspit of everything great and terrible about clubbing life back in the 80s and 90s. It wasn’t a flawless or sinless club but it was, on balance, a positive venue for Plymouth’s community at that time.”
Howard-Baker, who filmed the footage inside the derelict building in just one hour due to costs, thanks Nudge for allowing him access. In creating the documentary, he left the interviewees — who came from far and wide — to ‘tell their stories almost unprompted’, which is evident as the film presents a stream of consciousness from The Warehouse regulars. He says there ‘was a sense of relief’ among them as ‘I feel they were pleased that finally this story is now being told after years of this venue being forgotten’.
Image: Kinolibrary
Huge response
“I knew this project was big and would be really popular,” says Howard-Baker, “because of the sheer amount of responses I got from the original Facebook call-out. In one week, I got more than 1,000 reactions and so many people came forward who wanted to help. I immediately thought, ‘oh my gosh, the pressure is on to make this now and it needs to be as good as it can be’.”
Howard-Baker says that it’s all about festivals for the film now. “We’ve been selected for eight national festivals out of 75 so far and we are looking forward to some London screenings too,” he says. “I would like this film to have a successful run on the festival circuit in the UK and beyond. It’s all about community screenings right now but the eventual aim is for awards and for wider distribution across the UK and even globally.
“Festivals will prove the concept and popularity of the documentary before it goes forth to hopefully bigger things,” he adds. “There’s no reason it can’t be broadcast on TV, for instance. I’m open to making a follow-up too. For instance, I’ve looked into Devonport’s Van Dike Club that was on Exmouth Road between 1968 and 1972 — that would make for a great documentary. Or there’s the Dance Academy and many other clubs. But these ideas are reliant on whatever archive footage is available out there. So we will see.”
Cultural Vibes
DJ (or self-confessed ‘raver who plays records’) and promoter Dave Green brought his successful Cultural Vibes dance nights to The Warehouse from 1992. He is the film’s associate producer. He says: “We were really lucky in Plymouth at that time to have two world class venues in the Warehouse and Dance Academy. Both of them worked greatly — but I loved the Warehouse.
Green brought Cultural Vibes back to the derelict Warehouse space in April 2023, however he says he has no plans at the moment for another event in tribute to those days. “I have played all over the world and managed some great clubs,” he says, “but there really is nothing like the Warehouse. It was another world.”
So, calling all ravers past and present: get along to an upcoming screening of the documentary. It’s worth a trip down memory lane. You may even spot yourself in the film… but just don’t show it to your kids…
Kev 'Little-Kev' Grayling / Kinolibrary
Where you can see “W: A Return to Oz”
Friday 24 October 2025 — Century Club Soho in London from 7pm. Get your tickets and details: here.
Friday 14 November 2025 — Close-up Cinema in Sclater Street, Tower Hamlets, London from 6.30pm. Details: here.
A date in November or December 2025 — Plans are afoot for another Plymouth screening somewhere in the city. You need to follow the film’s Facebook or Instagram pages to find out where and when it’s going to be as soon as it is confirmed. It will likely be a sellout again so check those pages and then snap up your tickets quick.
Also look out for upcoming details on autumn screenings in Exeter, Bristol, Cornwall and other locations by following the Facebook page: here and the Instagram page: here — also check out the official website: here.
Also help Daniel Howard-Baker and producer Louis Holder with their next fiction project, a Plymouth film entitled “Calling You”. This work will also explore dance, music and memories. Find out more and donate some cash to the talented duo’s crowdfunder: here.
