Britannia Panopticon Music Hall
Britannia Music Hall opened in 1857 to entertain the hardest working folk of Glasgow. It survived when all it's contemporaries burnt down and by 1881 it was already billed as "The oldest established place of amusement in Glasgow." In 1896 it was one of the first places to show the cinematograph. By 1905 Britannia Music Hall had become outmoded in the face of the new entertainment palaces known as Variety Theatres; like the King's. Pavilion and Coliseum. They were luxurious venues with toilets, plush carpets and clean upholstered seats, Britannia had none of these and for a few short months it seemed that the Glasgow working man and woman had deserted the old hall for the more glamorous theatres. But all was not lost. In 1906 a young man who billed himself as "A. E. Pickard unlimited of London, Paris, Moscow and Bannockburn" appeared on the scene and added to the entertainments to be seen at the Britannia Music Hall. He converted the disused attic above the auditorium into a roof-top carnival, wax works and freak show and turned the cellar into a zoo. By May of 1906 the Britannia Music Hall had been reinvented as "Britannia Theatre of Varieties and Grand Panopticon." Sadly it finally closed in 1938, but was not removed. The music hall still survives and is today famous it's star turns who included:Harry Lauder, Dan Leno, Harry Champion, Charles Coburn, The Great Vance, George Leybourne, Marie Loftus, Archie Leech, Jack Buchanan and Stan Laurel's debut in 1906.
