Film suggestions for dark party?

[Joe Berenbaum <joe-b@dircon.co.uk>]

I'm hoping to attend and photograph a 21st party in a few weeks time, but
it's all a bit strange- it will be "fairly dark" I'm told, there will be
fairy lights, and other illumination also but possibly not very much of it.
A number of people may apparently be swooping in dressed as vampires and the
whole thing may be a bit of a spectacle. I say "may" because it is a
question of what can be arranged and keeping it hushed up so the person
whose 21st party this is doesn't realise that it will be anything other than
a normal boring birthday party. So- I'm thinking of taking an M6 and a
Noctilux and a 35mm Summicron and probably a 28mm Elmarit. All of a sudden I
finally understand why people buy those f1.4 35mm Summilux lenses... I don't
want to use flash for any of this. My main concern is what film to use. I
want to do most of this in black and white and I don't want to run out of
film speed. I can use HP5+ up to ISO 800 but want some insurance against
that not being high enough. So if anyone has any particular film/developer
combinations for ISO ratings of 1000 or higher that they feel produce
attractive images, please make suggestions. My inclination is to use Neopan
1600 or TMax 3200 and rate it at whatever is needed at the time, and develop
it in Xtol, but I don't feel at all confident with this idea because I've
never used either of of those combinations. In fact I haven't rated any b&w
film that high for a long time. Any recommendations, anyone?

Joe Berenbaum