Holloway Theatrical Costume Shop With £21 Rocky Horror Wigs

Party Spirit is the shop to try when a performance is next week rather than next season. It is a costume and party store on Holloway Road in north London, a short walk from Holloway Road Underground station, and it says it stocks over 5,000 costumes, wigs, masks, make-up and party accessories. Everything is for sale rather than hire, there is no appointment system, and the stock is built around the shows, films and decades that drama clubs, cabaret nights and fancy dress parties keep returning to.

The clearest proof that this is more than a Halloween shop is its Rocky Horror Show range, which covers almost the whole cast of the stage musical. The Riff Raff costume costs £49.50 and the matching bald-topped Riff Raff wig £23.10. A Frank N Furter corset costume is £48.13, with a surgical-gown version at £41.25, and his curly wig £21.45. Magenta's costume is £41.25 and her wig £26.40, while Columbia's sequinned outfit is £46.20 and the cinema Usherette costume £41.25.

That spread matters for the audience participation screenings and amateur productions that keep the show alive. A group can dress Brad, Janet and the Transylvanians from one visit, rather than ordering from five websites and hoping the colours match. Try the wigs on in the shop, because a stiff synthetic wig can look very different under a stage light from the photograph online.

Beyond Rocky Horror, the shop files costumes by film and stage title, which helps when a director hands you a character name rather than a description. Its character list includes Beetlejuice, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Corpse Bride, The Lost Boys, Ghostbusters, Gremlins and The Goonies, plus horror villains from A Nightmare on Elm Street, Chucky and Friday the 13th. A Regan wig from The Exorcist costs £16.83, and a children's Wednesday Addams wig is £32.83.

For devised theatre and cabaret, the theme rails are arranged by idea instead: witches, vampires, zombies, ghosts, devils, clowns, skeletons, aliens, gothic and Day of the Dead. Pulling a cast's looks from one theme keeps a chorus visually consistent, and the staff can help find matching pieces in several sizes. Bring a list of the cast's sizes, because the most popular styles sell through fast in October.

The wig wall is the other reason to visit. Prices on the shop's online catalogue include a mullet wig at £16.50, a black swinging sixties bowl cut at £21.32, a black vamp wig at £20.06 and a ginger curly afro at £26.40. A nude wig cap costs £6.34, and it is worth buying one with any wig, since it keeps hair flat and stops the wig from sliding during a dance number.

Capes and cloaks are cheap enough to buy for a whole chorus. A black hooded cloak, 140cm long, costs £10.75, a reversible black and red vampire cape £19.25 and a red satin hooded cape £19.80. Masks, hats, gloves, tights and stockings, toy weapons and brooms fill the accessory shelves, and the decades section is organised from the twenties to the nineties for school discos, jukebox musicals and period parties.

For theatre make-up, the shop carries the Moon Terror and Smiffys effects lines. A 50ml bottle of Moon Terror Pro FX fake blood costs £9.60, and a one-ounce bottle of Smiffys liquid latex costs £4.95, enough to build small scars and wounds for a horror scene. Glow-in-the-dark face paint starts at £4.13, and the Moon Terror Halloween lipsticks in green, white and orange cost £6.86 each, useful for zombie choruses and witches in a pantomime.

Liquid latex is the one to test on your skin a day before a show, since some performers react to it. Buy fake blood with a plan for washing costumes afterwards, because the realistic formulas are made to stain. Staff are on hand to advise on sizing and products, and the shop welcomes phone calls from people who want to check availability before making the trip.

Normal opening is Monday to Wednesday 10am to 7pm and Thursday to Saturday 10am to 8pm, closed Sunday. In the run-up to Halloween, Party Spirit publishes an extended timetable on its contact page, opening early, closing late and adding Sunday trading through the last fortnight of October. The final days before 31 October are the busiest of the year, so go during the first week of extended hours if you can.

Outside the Halloween crush, the shop sells costumes all year round and points customers to its World Book Day and Christmas collections, which makes it useful in February and December when school plays and nativities need shepherds, kings and storybook characters in a hurry. Delivery across the UK is available if you know exactly what you want.

Holloway Road is a long, busy high street, and the stretch around the shop is dominated by London Metropolitan University, whose angular Graduate Centre was designed by Daniel Libeskind. Walk south towards Highbury Corner and Highbury Fields opens up behind the station, the largest open space in Islington, lined with Georgian terraces.

Arsenal's Emirates Stadium is a few streets west, with its stadium tour and club museum, and on match days the road fills with fans. For theatre, continue down to Upper Street, where the Almeida Theatre on Almeida Street and the King's Head Theatre stage new writing and revivals. A costume errand and an evening show can easily share the same trip.

Party Spirit, at 179 Holloway Road, London N7 8LX, is a short walk from Holloway Road Underground station on the Piccadilly line. Regular hours are Monday to Wednesday 10am to 7pm and Thursday to Saturday 10am to 8pm, closed Sunday. Costumes, wigs, masks and make-up are sold, not hired, and no appointment is needed. The Riff Raff costume costs £49.50 and the Frank N Furter wig £21.45.