115 Trongate, City Centre

Opened: 1859
Closed: July 1938

Designed by: Bildard and McFarlane

Number of screens: 1
Number of seats:

The Britannia was sold to Glasgow showman AE Pickard in 1906 who reopened the building as the Britannia and Grand Panopticon and added a waxworks, a freak show and a menagerie - Pickard's Noah's Ark.

The Panopticon - or "pots and pans" - became well-known for its Friday amateur nights where Stan Jefferson and Archie Leech, better known respectively as Stan Laurel and Cary Grant made their first public appearances, although as amateur nights were not billed, there is only anecdotal evidence of this.

In 1910 Pickard restarted showing films which became so successful that in 1926 it became The Tron Cinema, reverting to the name Panopticon later that same year and continuing as a cinema until July 1938 when competition from the new luxury cinemas opening all over Glasgow forced it to close, its last show was "Trent's Last Case"

Pickard sold the building to his tailors, Weaver to Weaver who fitted a huge neon sign and were also responsible for the distinctive blue paint which still covers the building which today trades, more appropriately, as an amusement arcade, but remarkably the auditorium, boarded up since 1938 remains intact complete with wooden proscenium arch, benches, flaking gold paint and ornate plaster-work.

Built in 1857 on the site of an old warehouse, the Britannia Music Hall was opened in 1859 by Arthur Hubner and became "pre-eminently the most popular place of amusement" among working class people in Glasgow.

Britannia patrons sat on wooden benches or on the "posh" balcony seats which had backs and upholstery where they were entertained by a wide and varied bill at a modest admission price but frequently showed their disapproval of any act that didn't come up to scratch by throwing rotten fruit!

In addition to music hall acts, the Britannia began regular film shows on August 25th 1896, among the first films shown were the self-explanatory "Comic Scene in a Restaurant" "Rescue From a Fire" and "A Lynching Scene"