If you remember the song "Blaydon Races" the first verse is;

"We went to Blaydon Races 'twas in the month of June
In eighteen hundred and sixty two on a summers afternoon
We took the bus from Balmbras and it was heave laden
Away we went along Collingwood street that's on the road ti Blaydon."

Well Balmbras was a Music Hall in Newcastle on Tyne England and in 1962, part of the centenery celebrations was to open the Music Hall again. At that time I played banjo with a Trad Jazz Band and we dressed in Victorian costume and so we did regular bookings at Balmbras. The other acts were the compare, Dick Irwin, who used long rhyming words, some of them made up, and a host of Geordie jokes. There was Ted the Fire Eater who also ate razor blades and doubled as stage manager, three dancing girls complete with fishnet tights with holes and ladders who did the can can every night and the two musicians in the pit. Every wek they booked a male singer and female singer and a special act like our band, even catter Eric Symonds and I did a Geordie song act there a couple of times. Any way the Music Hall lasted for a number of years and audiences had to book up months in advance to get a seat. It has probably been turned into a disco or worse a karioki bar as it is situated at the bottom of the Big Market which is the main teenage venue in Newcastle these days.
Cheers Bill