My thanks to Judith Bowers of the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall Trust for permission to photograph the interior of the Panopticon. The Trust is a Scottish charity. Please take a look at their informative and entertainng website here...
Britannia Panopticon Music Hall Trust
These photographs were taken in 1999. Since that time the ceiling joists from the floor below have been removed and some work has started on renovating the Panopticon. Here is a link to a website that has far better photographs and is more up to date.
Cinema City & Beyond: Britannia Panopticon Music Hall
The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall was built in 1857, designed by the architects Gildhard and McFarlane.. It opened as the Britannia Hall but its name was changed many times.
The building has been called Campbell's Music Saloon, Hubner's Animatogrraph, Panopticon, Britannia Theatre of Varieties, and the Tron Cinema. In 1927. It settled for a while into being called the Panopticon or 'the pots and pans', to those who frequented it.
Stars such as Jack Buchanan, and a young acrobat called Archie Leech performed at the Panopticon. Archie Leech was of course, Cary Grant. Also making his first public appearance at the tender age of sixteen, was a young man called Arthur Stanley Jefferson, later to become Stan Laurel, and together with his partner Oliver Hardy, went on to become comic legends of the silver screen.
It could be argued that the Panopticon's best years started in 1906, when the Yorkshireman A E Pickard became the proprietor. Mr Pickard was a well liked character in Glasgow, a showman through and through. With his guidance, the Panopticon became a music hall, an amusement arcade, a zoo, waxwork museum, and a freak show.
It is interesting to note that the world famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York which opened in 1934 used a similar method as used in the Panopticon in which a long pole with a hook was used to drag off some unfortunate acts from the stage on Amateur Night, which coincidently was held on a Friday night, just as the Panopticon's Amateur Nights from 1906. Disney and Warner Bros cartoons also depicted their characters being hooked and pulled to the side by a pole or walking stick. Mr Pickard may not have been the first theatre owner to use this, but in the first decade of the 20th century he employed this method to great effect, and no doubt saved many an unfortunate act from being seriously harmed in the process.
The Panopticon finally closed its doors in 1938, and for a while the tailors Weaver To Wearer used it as a retail shop. Mitchells Amusements now occupy the ground level, but as you can see from the photographs above, taken severak years ago, the balcony is intact. There have been many improvements since those photographs were taken.
The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall Trust and its friends are attempting to restore the theatre to its former glory.
It is the only remaining auditorium of its kind in Scotland.
Judith Bowers has written a very entertaining book that traces the history of the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. It also contains brief biographies of the stars that appeared there.
But the book goes further than that, and traces the history of the music halls in Glasgow, detailing what life was like in the city during those times.
A very well-written book and highly recommended. It's in the shops now and can be ordered via Amazon.com.
Mitchells Amusements occupy the ground floor of the former Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. There is now a window display at the front entrance of Mitchells Amusements showing artifacts and posters of this great old music hall.
Do you think you can handle a 400 piece jigsaw of the photo above? Take a look at the the Lucky Bag Links on the Gallus Links main menu. You can download this jigsaw to play on your computer, and you don't have to be online.
The old lady stood on the other side of the road in front of the former Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. The fading light of evening made the pale blue building look eerie and foreboding. Knowing of the building's chequered past, with some trepidation, she crossed the road.
The ground floor part of the Panopticon was now being used as an amusement arcade. Within, people were being mesmerised by the flashing lights of the slot machines and the enticing music and videos of the games consoles.The monontonous tones of the bingo caller rose above this cacophony of sound.
Shaking her head in disapproval, she walked down the alleyway called the Wynd, to the right of the building. Here, it was dark, no place for a well-dressed lady. The old lady would have been rich pickings for the opportunist bag snatcher. She was wearing a fur coat with matching fur hat, white gloves and her face was heavily caked in makeup.
Removing her gloves, she was about to place her palms upon the cold wall, but drew away quickly. A wave of despair came over her and she knew that there were bad vibrations from the wall. She felt the misery of many people and animals emanating from the wall, but, determined to press on, she placed her hands on the cold dirty bricks.
The old lady gave a sigh of relief as the wall gave out vibrations of laughter, but she quickly realised that the laughter was mocking,and cruel. Closing her eyes, she felt the wall's vibrations travelling through her hands. The wall seemed to whisper to her, revealing the dark secrets it held within. The whispers became more audible. "Get aff! Ma man can sing better when he's drunk!" she heard plainly. She saw swirling dark grey clouds through her closed eyelids and then they slowly became clearer, like moving pictures forming in her head. It seemed as if the whispering wall was about to reveal more to her. She surrendered he conscious will and let it tell the story....
"Get aff! Ma man can sing better when he's drunk!", Big Helen shouted from the balcony.
Howls of laughter filled the tightly packed theatre, but the object of Big Helen's derision still gamely sang her song. "If I were a bird on the wing and I could see heaven above...", frightened by the hostile audience, her voice was trembling in fear.
"Aye - if only. Ah think I'd rather hear the sparra than listen tae you!" Big Helen was on form. This was the only pleasure she had, coming here every Friday to the 'pots and pans', the Panopticon. It made her forget her problems she left at home, her drunk, brutal husband and her sick child.
Outside, garish posters proclaimed "A E Pickard Proudly Presents Amateur Night Every Friday." Other posters advertised his other entertainments. "End 1906 With Visit To The World Famous Freak Show!" It was so popular that the eccentric Yorkshireman, Mr Pickard could charge double, 4d (4 old pennies).
By now, the poor young lady's body had frozen as she looked in abject terror at the baying audience, who by now had become a rabble. From the balcony, they were throwing rotting apples, tomatoes, small cabbages, and, deadliest of all, potatoes.
A local fruit and vegetable merchant had quickly capitalised on the Panopticon's infamous heckling given to unpopular performers, and sold sacks of rotting produce to the theatre goers as they entered the building. For a farthing, they could have enough ammunition to pelt at least three acts, if used sparingly. Mr Pickard, the theatre proprietor let this practise continue, as it was preferable to the audience throwing welder's rivets, which had caused Mr Pickard to put up a wire mesh to protect the pit orchestra.
The young lady had stopped singing and stood in fear with her hands covering her face as the fruit and vegetables rained down upon her. The final indignity came when a large pole was seen to come out left of stage. Attached to the pole was a large metal hook, which was large enough to fit around the victim's waist. On seeing this familiar part of the proceedings, the audience gave a loud cheer, and stopped throwing missiles. The pole was operated by Mr Pickard himself, sitting on top of a wooden set of ladders at the side of the stage, unseen by the audience. With practised precision, he hooked the tearful young lady's waist, and gently pulled her towards him, stage left - much to the glee of the cruel rabble, their triumphant cries filling the small theatre.
Mr Pickard came down from the ladders and put his arm around the young lady, gently taking her away to a small room that served as his office. He quickly summoned the next act to go on stage, a comedian.
The audience liked this comedian right away. Dressed in a clown's baggy trousers and braces, but wearing no make up, he fired off raunchy gags in quick succession, forcing the audience to listen carefully, lest they miss a funny line. The comedian pranced about the stage, swinging his baggy trousers suggestively as he made a raunchy punchline. The violinist in the orchestra pit decided to join in and played one note sliding up the fret quickly, each time this happened, adding to the effect. Every now and then, the comedian would kick a rotten apple or a potato off the stage and into the orchestra pit, much to the delight of the audience. They erupted in laughter as one of the orchestra members threw an apple back at the comedian just as he turned his back on the audience in the middle of a little comic dance - the apple bounced off the comedian's head.
Mr Pickard was very shrewd, and tried to select the acts in a certain order, avoiding putting two dubious acts on one after the other. He knew the comedian would be a safe bet. There was no point in getting the audience too worked up.
In Mr Pickard's office, the young lady was still sobbing uncontrollably, despite one of Mr Pickard's assistants putting her arm around the poor soul to comfort her. "This crowd is not for you dear," the assistant said, "you picked the wrong stage to sing your songs, which I am sure are lovely. But don't let that put you off. I am sure that some other places like church halls would love to hear you sing."
But irreparable damage had been done, and the young lady would never sing again. It took all the courage she could muster to step out onto that stage, and face a tough audience. She had talent, but her beautiful voice and lovely lyrics had been snuffed out simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She came from the tenements, just like everybody else, but in her heart she believed for a while that she could rise above all the squalor and misery and sing her sweet songs. She would end up being married to a man with no ambition, bringing up children, and living in the same tenement building for many years. Her dreams shattered, the only audience that would ever hear her sing would be her children, as she gently sings them a lullaby at bedtime.
The young lady's sorrow only added to the gloom within the building. The misery of the animals locked in cramped cages, the sadness of the unfortunate souls branded as freaks and laughed at by a paying crowd, just because of a genetic accident at birth. This gloom pervaded the building, etching into its very walls...
...The old lady removed her hands from the wall and walked out of the Wynd and back to the front of the Panopticon. The vibrations were so strong that she saw a tramcar trundling straight towards her. The pavements were much narrower then. The tramcar passed by her and then disappeared. People dressed in drab Edwardian clothes were mingling with the present pedestrians, but they too faded away.
At the entrance to the arcade, she saw the unmistakeable figure of Mr A E Pickard. He was dressed in his plus-fours and carrying a walking stick. He was nodding his head in approval at the sound of money being made and lost and turned to look at the old lady.
He winked at her and utttered his favourite saying in his famous Yorkshire accent, "You've got to 'ave a bit of fun you know, life's all fun!" With that, he walked east, towards Glasgow Cross, and then slowly faded away.
At first, the old lady could not understand how Mr Pickard could be so cheerful, since the Panoptcon to her was such a miserable place. But she realised that times were different in 1906, different values, a different way of life, and much harsher. Mr Pickard had created in the Panopticon, a monument to a time gone by, where many people failed to realise their dreams on that stage, but a few others survived and went on to become international stars.
It was dark now. The old lady headed west toward Argyle Street, the gloom of the Panopticon still within her. It was only when she reached the corner of Glassford Street that the eerie feeling left her. Taking a deep breath, and mentally clearing her head of all thoughts of the Britannia Panopticon - she made her way home.
