ABSTRACT
There is a consensual view of the main elements of the origins of music hall in the literature on nineteenth-century popular music in Britain, for example in the works of Pearsall (1975), Russell (1997), Lee (1982), Kift (1996) and Bailey (1998).2 According to these authorities, music hall was a form of commercial entertainment for the urban lower classes introduced in the mid-nineteenth century. The forerunner of the music hall was the ‘glee’ or singing night held in London taverns.3 It took its name from the specialist venues that were built or adapted to provide an evening’s show by up to a dozen separate acts, ranging from singers and dancers to trick cyclists, jugglers, magicians and animal acts. To this extent it was similar to the contemporaneous vaudeville scene in the United States.
