The powder-blue facade of the Britannia Panoptican droops under the dual ravages of time and weather. Inside, though, the world's oldest surviving music hall is much as it was when Stan Laurel began his career there almost a century ago.

Secreted above a Glasgow amusement arcade, the stalls and circles which once held a baying crowd of more than 1,000 have lain empty for 65 years.

But next Tuesday the Britannia Panopticon will see an audience again. There may be fewer people this time - fire regulators say 60 at a push - but when fiddler Gillian Frame picks up her violin, the stage will also be set for the rebirth of this grand old lady of British theatre.

"The Britannia Panopticon is not the sort of heritage you walk about gazing at while thinking, 'Isn't that pretty'," said Judith Bowers, director of the restoration trust. "We want it to be a living, breathing music hall that gives some flavour of what it was like for the poor - and rough - audience it attracted."

Although it started life as a Georgian warehouse, the then just plain Britannia emerged as a music hall in 1857. It covered four floors: in the basement there was a zoo, a pub on the ground floor, and an auditorium and a freak show at the top.

Ms Bowers, an archaeologist who has devoted the past seven years of her life to getting the building up and running again, says she hopes to restore the top three floors - but the zoo will have to be forfeited.

"We don't want this to be a pastiche," she said. "I would like to see Moulin Rouge nights and Fritz Lang movies playing in the auditorium. A functioning Victorian pub downstairs - no alcopops. And the freak show should be reinstated."

Although the Britannia had its heyday in the 1880s, its greatest claim to fame hails from July 1906, when Stan Laurel made his debut on its stage. Laurel's father was a stage manager at a nearby theatre and was determined his son would not take to the stage. He wanted him to get an education and follow him into theatre management.

But Stan used to bunk off school to go to the Britannia. At 16 he persuaded his friends to form an ensemble, but on the amateur night when they were due on stage they backed out.

Undeterred, Stan took some Dan Leno music to the Britannia and bought a joke on the street outside. He was wearing his dad's best suit, cut to his size. His performance was so bad that he was pelted with dung and rivets.

But, as Stan took his bow, legend has it that he spotted his father at the back of the theatre and, in fright, trod on his hat, before falling back and ripping the suit. The audience thought this hilarious - and a comic career was born.

Despite the Hollywood connections - Cary Grant also played the Britannia as the distinctly less glamorous acrobat Archie Leach - the Britannia's audience hailed from Glasgow's slums. "Violence was common and prostitutes frequented the place," Ms Bowers said.

Despite estimated costs of £4.6m to fully refurbish the Britannia, Ms Bowers is confident of getting the funding. "It's an almost perfectly preserved piece of social history," she said.