The way the London Palladium is positioned on Argyll Street is almost intentional; it exudes the calm assurance of a venue that knows exactly what it is. Despite the polished exterior, the story of how it got there is messier, louder, and far more fascinating. It starts in a pub rather than a theater.
The saloon bars of London pubs in the 1830s gave rise to music hall, the uniquely British practice of combining popular songs, comedic performances, and outright spectacle into one gloriously chaotic evening. The idea was straightforward: pay a little more at the bar, sit down, watch comics and singers perform while you ate, drank, and smoked. The entire arrangement was purposefully casual because that was exactly the point. It was not theater at all. It was entertainment that didn’t require you to sit up straight or keep quiet.
Most people agree that Lambeth’s Canterbury Music Hall was the first real purpose-built example of the genre. On May 17, 1852, Charles Morton, later dubbed “the Father of the Halls,” opened it on the location of a skittle alley adjacent to his pub, the Canterbury Tavern.
That date was once referred to as “the most significant date in all the history of music hall” by author and musician Benny Green, which seems like the kind of assertion you’d want to resist until you start looking at what happened next. In London alone, there were hundreds of smaller venues and dozens of large halls by the 1870s. Clearly, something had caught.
The ambiance, not just the alcohol, was what set music halls apart from traditional theaters. Instead of sitting in stalls, audiences sat at tables. The gallery seats were the least expensive. Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno, Little Tich, and George Leybourne were among the performers who went on to become true celebrities.
By the middle of the century, the halls were as hungry for catchy songs as streaming platforms are today, so they hired professional songwriters to provide them with new material on an almost industrial scale. There is a sense that the economics were somewhat similar to what we would recognize today, even though the parallel isn’t perfect.
The venues themselves changed quickly. By the 1880s and 1890s, the filthy concert halls next to pubs were being replaced by magnificent “palaces of varieties”: large, elaborately decorated theaters with marble exteriors, electric lighting, and opulently furnished foyers.
When the London Pavilion was rebuilt in 1885, contemporaries observed that the last remnants of the halls’ pub roots had completely vanished, to be replaced by what appeared to be high culture. Everyone had to pretend, courteously, that the music hall had always been dignified because it was an aesthetic reinvention.
When the London Palladium opened in 1910, it was designed by Frank Matcham, the architect behind the Hackney Empire and later the Coliseum Theater. The first Royal Variety Performance took place in front of King George V in 1912, but even at that point of formal acceptance, the old ragged spirit was still evident.
By that time, the form had gained enough respect to garner royal attention. The most popular music hall performer in Britain at the time, Marie Lloyd, was not asked to perform. She likely took the criticism that she was too “saucy” for a royal audience as a compliment.
It’s difficult not to see the London Palladium as the ultimate, opulent manifestation of everything that music halls had been constructing in order to create a space that retained the spirit and aspirations of those Victorian saloon bars while eliminating the majority of their mess.
By the time the building opened, the form itself was beginning to disappear, gradually being replaced by television, cinema, and variety. The underlying instinct that a night out should be boisterous, humorous, and somewhat unpredictable did not go away. It recently discovered new addresses.
FAQs
Q: Where did music hall originate?
A: It grew out of London pub saloon bars in the 1830s.
Q: Who is considered the Father of the Halls?
A: Charles Morton, who opened the Canterbury Music Hall in 1852.
Q: Who designed the London Palladium?
A: Frank Matcham, also responsible for the Hackney Empire and Coliseum.
Q: Why was Marie Lloyd excluded from the first Royal Variety Performance?
A: She was considered too risqué for a royal audience.
Q: What eventually replaced music hall as popular entertainment?
A: Cinema, television, and variety shows gradually took its place.