Panopticon

Doors Open Days are taking place around Scotland this month, and while each local authority usually chooses one weekend in September to participate, Glasgow has a full week of events in which one can visit buildings not usually open to the public.

Our church Daytrippers group (aka 'have bus pass will travel') decided some time ago to use the opportunity to visit the Britannia Panopticon, described as the world's oldest surviving music hall.

So off we headed into Glasgow and, after a stop for coffee and cake (the Panopticon didn't open until noon), we had a fascinating walk around the display of early 20th century theatre posters, photographs, costumes, etc in this vast space which had lain almost derelict between the music hall's closure in 1938 and its 'rediscovery' in the late 1990s. It is now managed by a trust, which is slowly restoring the building as funds allow.

The Panopticon proudly declares that it was where the 16-year-old Arthur Stanley Jefferson (later to take the stage name Stan Laurel) made his stage debut. Shows are now once again performed there, but for Doors Open Days we were treated to some old silent movie clips, some dating from the 1890s.