Parties: A five-star night out at the Langham Hotel London

As taxis parked up for the "Grand Unveiling" of the £80m rebirth of the Langham Hotel London, a cool Bill Nighy sauntered by on foot, smoothly unaffected by the Tube strike that had caused such mayhem earlier in the day.

"I don't ever take the Tube," the lean actor said. "I've been walking around London all day and it's been beautiful, shame I forgot my brolly – always forget the brolly," he added while eyeing up tray-loads of smoked salmon canapés.

Another member of the glitterati found milling around the huge ballroom was sinewy Dougray Scott: "Claire and I are still keen to do Macbeth together," he cooed, before trailing after a moody Ms Forlani, already in character. They joined a clandestine gathering of Rupert Penry-Jones, Tom Hollander and Rob Brydon at the Artisan Bar.

But one guest failed to make the bash entirely. Despite being promised the £5,000-a-night Affinity suite, there was no sign of blonde beauty, Sienna Miller, who, it was said, was "too exhausted to attend" – a fact that didn't stop her from dining out with the fashionista crowd the next evening.

So it was left to her designer pal Matthew Williamson to prove that the fashion set can still party hard. Arriving late from the Graduate Fashion Awards, The New Review hears he invited revellers back to his room until 5am. And it seems guests toed the celeb-party line: by midnight, all 30 of the hotel's vacant rooms were mysteriously occupied. A successful renaissance in all areas, then.