As fairground bar Fairgame lands in the City of London, Anna Moloney looks at the divisive rise of forced fun at work

Yesterday, City AM columnist Lewis Liu lamented the death of corporate glamour, conjuring bygone images of sharply dressed businessmen swishing round town and hopping on business flights, all enhanced with the former vainglory of considering oneself “a professional”. The loss of such glamour, in part, Liu attributes to the decline of secretaries (businesspeople are no longer considered above filing their own expenses), but there is arguably a far bigger indignity that has been chipping away at professional life for years: the rise of corporate fun.

It needs little introduction: from pizza parties to treasure hunts, many of City AM’s readers will have found themselves firsthand witnesses, happily or otherwise, to the campaign to make work ‘fun’. Though first dreamed up in the beanbag-furnished brainstorm rooms of Silicon Valley, the arrival of a giant rubber duck by St Paul’s Cathedral tells us the City has now fully been captured.

Meet Fairgame, London’s latest success story in the ‘competitive socialising’ industry. Following in the footsteps of the likes of Swingers and Flight Club, Fairgame is inspired by the fun of old-school fairgrounds, with modernised versions of beanbag tosses, whack-a-mole and hook-a-duck, all enhanced with glittering cocktails and prosecco-flavoured candyfloss to create a “playground for grown-ups”. Indeed, while the branding leans heavily into childhood nostalgia, Fairgame is strictly for over-18s only, with City slickers encouraged to let go and “be a kid again”. Pink teddy bears are the prime prize to take back to the office. The St Paul’s branch, which opened in August, comes after the concept found........

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