Panopticon Vaudeville

Ladies and gentlemen, it's obviously not enough for the Friends of the Panopticon to keep this magical music hall auditorium open. They must recreate the atmosphere and acts of a better age, entertainments from a past where things were spicier, less corporate and more handcrafted. They shall sing, and dance, and mime and amaze, for as long as the building remains warm enough.

Kicking off with a lecture on the history of the building – it gained its name from the time when one ticket price got the punters in for the music hall, the freak show and zoo in the basement – the afternoon's entertainment are gamely led by an old fashioned compere. Plenty of ribald responses come from the cheap seats, although the artists are given far more respect than in previous years. In the nineteenth century, shit and rivets would apparently fly through the air.

Undoubted star of the show is the magician Aziz: his act is certainly old school, and he even makes doves appear out of thin air. But the sing-along numbers are jaunty, sometime Skinny critic Charlie Montgomery turns up for a duet with a beautiful young woman, the fun-for-all-ages is never cloying, and the acts never outstay their welcome. There is even a classic double act who sing a parody of Scotland the Brave, possibly for the benefit of the English in the audience.

The afternoon is driven by the piano of Mira Opalinska, international star of the keyboard: her Chopin etudes adding a febrile sophistication to Aziz's conjuring and a punchy energy to the patriotic sing-along. It may be a side-step from the raunchy scene of burlesque, or the political incision of the Berlin inspired scene, but this vaudeville is both museum pristine and performance pleasure.