subs. (obsolete).—A low-class theatre or music-hall. [The charge for admission being a penny or two.] See quot. 1851. Also PENNY-ROOM and DUKEY: cf. PENNY-HOP.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I. 42. In many of the thoroughfares of London shops have been turned into a kind of temporary theatre…. Rude pictures of the performers are arranged outside, to give the front a gaudy and attractive look, and at night-time coloured lamps and transparencies are displayed to draw an audience. These places are called by the costers PENNY-GAFFS; and on a Monday night as many as six performances will take place, each one having its two hundred visitors.
1866. ANNIE THOMAS, Walter Goring, II. 131. The difference between a PENNY-GAFF and a fair, or, as we call it, a canvas-clown.
