A NEW 1980s-themed nightclub gives patrons an authentic experience of a profoundly painful decade.

The Atomic! club, which opens in Birmingham next week, takes clubbers chronologically through the years 1980-1989.

Owner Tom Booker said: We begin with the place in flames from a race riot, bin lids and bricks flying through the air, and it only gets more exciting.

Everyone acts like theyre enjoying themselves but inwardly theyre convinced theyre going to die in a nuclear holocaust, which lends it the thinly-veiled desperation of a stag night.

Nobody gets any sex because theyre too terrified of catching a terminal disease. Homophobia is, of course, encouraged.

About halfway through the night the yuppies arrive and three-quarters of the dancefloor gets cordoned off for their exclusive use.

The good news is if you stay until about quarter to two, just before we close, we give you an E and then knock down the wall with sledgehammers.

The club charges £10 admission for Southerners and everything in the current account, your savings and your house for Northerners, the Scottish and the Welsh.

22-year-old Helen Archer said: This is completely wrong. The entirety of the 80s is: Rubiks Cube, puffball skirts, Knight Rider and the milder aspects of Margaret Thatcher.

I wont have people rewriting history.