Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous music hall entertainment and subsequent, more respectable variety entertainment differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. In North America vaudeville was in some ways analogous to British music hall, featuring rousing songs and comic acts.
The Eagle Tavern in 1830
The Oxford Music Hall, c. 1875
The interior of Wilton's Music Hall (here, being set for a wedding). The line of tables give some idea of how early music halls were used as supper clubs.
Interior of the Canterbury Hall, opened 1852 in Lambeth
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the Georgian era and preceded the Edwardian era, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe.
Painting of Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1859)
Information circulated by the campaign of Lewis Pugh Pugh, a candidate at the 1880 general election in Cardiganshire (now known as Ceredigion), explaining to supporters how to vote.
Depiction of the defence of Rorke's Drift during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 by Alphonse de Neuville (1880)
Recreation of a Victorian parlour at Nidderdale Museum, Yorkshire