Style: The fastest, loosest, hottest, coolest strip in town: Eating, drinking, strutting, posing or gawping in wide-eyed wonder. Midnight on Old Compton Street, and all human life is here

ON A hot summer night, Soho greets you like a slap in the face with a wet fish. Its streets are tight, bright, sweaty and pulsing with life of all kinds. Full of flesh and dirt, it stinks, it bulges with neon and noise. Everything seems closer than it should be. There are buses and taxis and hot-dogs, and sirens wailing, and people shouting and swearing. There is emotional turbulence, as volatile groups seize upon any passing mood. And the mood changes faster, the crowd reacts quicker, in Old Compton Street.

Always good value, it has of late surpassed itself. This 200-yard stretch, running east-west from Charing Cross Road to Wardour Street, is one of the most stimulating and exuberant urban pathways in Europe. Particularly after 10.30pm on a Saturday, when all hell breaks loose.

This is the moment when the Prince Edward and Palace theatres belch out their bemused patrons, who blink uncomprehendingly at the frenzy surrounding them. Example: an entire New England family, frozen like rabbits in the headlights' glare as a shaven-headed man saunters past them, wearing hot pants so tight you can tell his religion. It was not like this before the show, you can hear them thinking. No; it was not. Old Compton Street only comes alive after dark, but then there's no stopping it.

It is not just the juxtaposition of tourist and native, straight and queer, grotesque and elegant. There is also the random index of nationalities, fashions, social class and age, and the way that people are sucked into its swirling, chaotic flow and forced to interact. Here is London street life at its most excitable.

Most of this renewed vitality is due to its colonisation by gay men. The 'pink pound' has galvanised this street, most noticeably through gay bars such as Comptons and the Village, which attract a regular, free-spending clientele. Established shops such as American Retro, and newer ones such as Clone Zone and Rox Men, complement the ambience. Further up the street, the gay scene has commandeered the Compton Cafe and Ed's Easy Diner. Trade is building fast. Meanwhile, exotic creatures in revealing garb cruise up and down, eyeing those perched at pavement tables, who feign a lack of interest.

An obvious innocent, Tim says he 'hasn't got a clue' where he is. He came up from Bristol with a coach party, and has just seen Crazy For You at the Prince Edward. Before that? 'A matinee performance of Miss Saigon.' Now he's looking for the coach. And the shows? 'Both fantastic.'

Leaning against the window of a porn shop called Supermags, two blonde women are eating chips. 'No pictures, no taping,' shrieks one as we approach. The other explains, in a Welsh accent muted by a mouthful of soggy potato, 'We're drunk and we're not saying nothing. We don't want anybody to know we're here.' Within seconds we cannot get rid of them; they want to tell us everything.

There's a party going on at Rox Men, the gay barber shop. It opened two weeks ago and business exploded. Across the road a new late-night bar and restaurant has opened. Balan's belongs to David Taylor and Prady Balan, who run the Compton Cafe, and will certainly mean more customers for Rox Men - which already stays open till 10 o'clock every night.

Pollo, the legendary Italian cheapo, has lost its trendier custom to Wagamama in Bloomsbury, but is still full. Outside I find Jo, Rebecca, Bruce and Kevin who insist they are all performing at the Marquee tonight in a band called Scumfuck. I seize my chance to show off. 'Do you realise,' I ask, 'that this street is the cradle of British pop culture? The 2i's coffee bar,' I continue, 'which nurtured the first stirrings of an indigenous rock'n'roll movement, was sited at number 59. It is now a bistro called Le Bistingo.' Jo looks at me like something she stepped in.

Iseult, Suki, Leila, Judy and Savas, five beautiful young people, are celebrating Iseult's 19th birthday. They have been in the O Bar in Wardour Street, but they want another drink before hitting a Mayfair nightclub. We decide to join them. Iseult, we learn, is an old Irish name. Leila charms the bouncer at Cafe Boheme and we all squeeze into this noisy bar, packed full of straights. Iseult orders neat tequila and downs it in one. The photographer and I nurse our Cokes as drunken punters barge their way past.

Back outside, Ivan and Heather make a handsome couple as they walk together, arms draped around each other's waist. She is black and lesbian, he is blond and gay. They, too, have come from the O Bar, where they saw a policeman sitting astride a brawling drunk on the pavement. They have been all over tonight: the Loft, the Village, the Courtyard, the Cruise Bar, and finally a coffee at the Compton Cafe. 'We know everybody on the scene, but we usually avoid Saturday nights,' says Ivan. Why? 'Too many bridge and tunnel people,' they laugh, using New York slang for suburbanites.

Oh, and here comes Maxine. I know her. She is with a bunch of friends and heading for south London, but she cannot find her car. 'It's parked around here somewhere,' she says. 'Oh God, don't put that in the paper.' I reassure her and move on.

Sitting outside the Compton Cafe are Sebastian and his mates, who have just been offered LSD by a passing dealer. They seem caught somewhere between outrage and delight. Did they buy some? 'No] I said, 'No thanks, maybe tomorrow'.' Sebastian has a band, too, called Yeah. I spare him the 'birthplace of pop culture' spiel.

Inside, Flossie - a fierce transvestite with a Marge Simpson hairdo and three-inch lashes - is holding court. As the photographer approaches, she leans over to a boy in a checked shirt and says, 'Here, I hope you've told your mother you're a faggot, otherwise she'll have a heart attack when she sees the paper.' Her audience erupts, the boy blushes.

Bar Italia, tucked just round the corner in Frith Street, has been crucial to the area since it opened in 1950. Its customers are 70 per cent regulars, 30 per cent overspill from the chi-chi joints on Old Compton. By midnight the place is mobbed, but Luigi (who starts at 9pm and finishes around eight o'clock the next morning) runs a tight ship, and there is never any trouble. 'A lot more people come to this area now; clubs, bars, shops, food, everything they want is less than 20 minutes' walk.' Franca Abracciamento, a model from New York, is here with her English cousin David, as if to verify Luigi's assertion. They have been to Ronnie Scott's, now they are heading for Quaglino's. 'Soho is wonderful, I feel at home here,' says Franca.

OK, it is not the Reeperbahn or the Ramblas. But there is a frisson about this street, a sense of potential transformation. And, with its wrap-around intensity and pocket-rocket power, it is somehow more appropriate than its outsize European counterparts, better suited to an age of micro-technology, virtual environments and cultural tourism.

For some, this is a truncated Sunset Strip; for others, a snack-sized Greenwich Village. A few wander through their own Soho Fantasy theme park, a place to be young and flash. Many simply want a late drink, food or coffee. Others are passing through but have chosen this route. There are straights and gays on the pull. And, inevitably, a few lost souls trying to find their way out.

On a Saturday night in Old Compton Street you can see them all for the price of a cappuccino. I call that a bargain.

(Photograph omitted)