REVIEW: Cocktails, pizza, games... Playhouse in Northampton's Bridge Street is perfect for a fun, friendly and relaxed night out

Here's why you should head down to the new Playhouse bar in Northampton town centre.

This newspaper visited the new Playhouse bar on Bridge Street to meet the team, test out the games, cocktails and homemade pizza - and we had a blast of a time.

The venue was formerly the home of Revolution bar until that closed down last year. After months of refurbishment, Playhouse opened in November. It looks incredible inside, full of colour, life and games.

Playhouse general manager Leslie Walker said: "We've brought this into a town which we thought needed a bit of reinvigoration.

"We were thinking, let's bring something more approachable, more inclusive instead of being another late night venue where you just drink and stay out until four in the morning. This is somewhere where you can bring the whole family, couples and friends.

"We are just trying to provide an atmosphere for people to come and enjoy themselves."

This newspaper tried the new Raceway game which is located on the second floor of the building. Raceway is effectively a giant Scaletrix type set up where you race others over the course of five minutes as you all battle for top spot.

Leslie said: "We call it our showstopper, it's the reason to visit. What we are trying to do is get groups of people competing even if you don't know each other and get a bit of friendly banter going on.

"Everyone thinks they're a bit of a boy racer, everyone thinks they can be Lewis Hamilton. It doesn't matter how experienced you are, it's just a big reason to visit and bring your friends. It will be the highlight of your evening, really.

"We call it competitive socialising. It's inviting your friends out and having a reason to visit. Being here, competing against your friends and just actually doing something."

Leslie is absolutely spot on. We had a great time racing both in our group and with strangers. We could have been there all night whizzing around the bespoke track.

We then headed back downstairs to the brand spanking new bar to try some cocktails.

Playhouse is going against the grain when it comes to how the bar operates by drastically reducing the time you are spent queueing.

Leslie said: "Everyone complains about queueing for a drink. We've taken a step and said, 'how can we make that quicker and give people their life back?'.

"What we've done is streamlined it. We are using draught cocktails but we have gone out and sourced the best ingredients, the best cocktails, and we are able to do quite complicated cocktails in a matter of seconds.

"Our cocktails are show stopping, they are fantastically unique. We can get you away from that bar so you can go and enjoy yourself in our venue. We can give you some of your life back. We are quicker than any bar in town by a mile."

And we can say Leslie is spot on. The cocktails were amazing, the queues were non-existent and the experience was care free. Happy days.

The range of cocktails includes Pornstar Martinis, WaterMelon Ballers, Mean Girls, and the in-house Frozen Granitas.

Anyone and everyone is welcome at Playhouse. We'd definitely recommend you to get down there and have some fun.