FUNDRAISERS at Glasgow‘s Britannia Panopticon in Trongate have released a Christmas single to raise money for the upkeep of the historic music hall.

Volunteers at “the worlds oldest surviving music hall” have recorded a special version of ‘Here Comes Old Father Christmas’, originally performed by well-loved music hall composer, singer and comedian, Harry Champion, who performed on the iconic stage numerous times in the 1890s.

Lawrence Dunn, who began devoting his time to the venue in 2008, said: “One of our ideas was to make a CD of musical songs and then we thought, ‘It’s getting near Christmas, why don’t we make a Christmas song?’

“I did the arrangement – I played banjolele on it and we have a double bass and a trumpet, two solo singers and the choirs as well. I took it home and put sleigh bells, glockenspiel and violin on it – it sounds just really festive and jolly!”

The Panopticon Warblers and Gladstone’s Bag also produced a charmingly festive video to go along with the Christmas tune, featuring Lawrence as Father Christmas visiting the Panopticon and the carol singers inside.

READ MORE: Ex-RBS building on Trongate could be demolished for hotel, shops and pub

All money raised by the single will go towards the upkeep of Glasgow’s historic hidden gem, which has seen a resurgence in popularity in the past few years.

Lawrence said: “We have drag shows, silent film screenings twice a month, TV crews come to use the space for filming, so it’s lovely to see the wonderful space getting used again.

“People know about historic Glasgow buildings like the Willow Tea Rooms but not so much about the Panopticon, which is just as much a historic Glasgow building.”

The building has been used for many things through the years from a zoo, to a chicken farm during the war, to the music hall that put it on the map.

“For people in Glasgow, especially being in such a poor area, they had never seen anything like that before. It was for the people of Glasgow – we’ve has Stan Laurel on the stage on 1906, Cary Grant performed a trapeze act. All the great entertainers came up here to perform and we don’t want to lose such a big part of Glasgow’s cultural history.”

The single is available for download on the Britannia Panopticon’s website, Spotify, Google Play Store and iTunes.