There is something particularly delightful about the inversion of established purpose. So it was last night when The Cambridge Union Society, pillar of the establishment, was turned into the playground of a heaving mass of painfully beautiful boys in garlands and glitter. Dionysia was a lesson in C21st hedonism led by the most expert of teachers. Excess, exuberant fashion and posturing were at the forefront of the pulsing crowd’s conscience, but to call them out on this posing risks missing the point of the exercise. As I was told by one party-goer: “The festival of Dionysius is, after all, a performance.” And no one does performance quite as well as ArcSoc.

The building took on the air of a debauched country house as the residents, clad in the requisite headdresses, body paint and aura of aloofness, took their place in a carnival of self-conscious individuality. The debating chamber was turned into a dance-floor, the revellers overseen by a gyrating animated Greek statue.  It seemed fitting that these, the self-professed cultural avant-garde of Cambridge, should be dancing where the establishment pontificates.

It was not without a tinge of irony that the dining-room, the too frequent host of faded glamour models, hosted nudes for a life-drawing class. There was something uncomfortably insecure about this attempt to give the evening edge simply by exposing artfully spray-painted nipples.  Regardless of how ironically the people were sitting at their feet, it just felt a little bizarre. The opulence that ArcSoc was aiming for was instead achieved by the blood-red walls of the room and the cello quartet in the background, who played quite beautifully. The location once again reasserted itself as an impressive and important space that the Greek theme was simply growing into, like the ivy which festooned the cut-glass of the chandeliers. It seemed almost like an intrusion, which only made the theme seem more decadent.

The Blue Room hosted live music and was the highlight of the evening. Holly and the Sorchestra especially managed to achieve the pointed cool required of such an evening by indulging in a series of 70’s and 80’s covers. But then again, who doesn’t love an excuse to do a post-ironic indie disco shuffle to ‘You Sexy Thing’.

Sitting with Perseus in the bar, looking back across the throng, the commitment both of the events team and the attendees to a kind of determinedly arty posturing was clear. The most delicate of bone-structures clashed with look-at-me sartorial decisions normally inexperienced this side of the English faculty, all against a lavish backdrop of drapes and statues. The overall effect was pageant-esque, luscious in its striving for artistic decadence and well worth a visit the next time it rolls around.