Focusing on Glasgow¿s earliest surviving music hall the Britannia later the Panopticon this
book explores the role of one of the city¿s most iconic cultural venues within the cosmopolitan
entertainment market that emerged in British cities in the nineteenth century. Shedding light
on the increasing diversity of commercial entertainment provided by such venues ¿ offering
everything from music hall early cinema and amateur nights to waxworks menageries and freak
shows ¿ this study also encompasses the model of community-based working-class music hall
which characterised the Panopticon¿s later years challenging narratives of the primacy of city
centre variety. Providing a comprehensive analysis of this dynamic popular theatre of the
industrial age Maloney examines the role of the hall¿s managers marketing and promotional
strategies audiences and performing genres from the hall¿s opening in 1859 until final
closure in 1938. The book also explores stage representations of Irish and Jewish immigrant
communities present in surrounding city centre areas demonstrating the Britanniäs diasporic
links to other British cities and centres in North America thus providing a multifaceted and
pioneering account of this still extant Victorian music hall.
