THE places we go to enjoy different kinds of entertainment have changed radically through the decades. 

Today we are just as likely to watch a film at home rather than in a cinema, or to laugh along with a top comic in the comfort of a plush theatre seat - rather than in the traditional setting of a pub or working men's club. 

Many buildings have seen their uses changed to reflect modern tastes. 

In Millom the Beggar's Theatre was created in the former Palace Ballroom, a barn in the Rusland Valley is now a community cinema and the old Salthouse Pavilion on Roose Road, Barrow, has gone from cinema to bingo hall, to auction room, to church. 

George Friedrich Handel's Messiah is the most popular sacred piece of choral music in the English language and performances of its have become strongly associated with churches. 

However, the first performance on April 13 in 1742 was in the Concert Hall, Dublin and last month the 179-year-old Lancaster and District Choral Society went back to those early times by performing the work in the Grand Theatre, in St Leonardgate, Lancaster, which was built in 1782 and survived a major fire in 1908. 

Conductor John Perrin led the choir with a 16-piece chamber orchestra - including a harpsichord played by Peter Collier.  Sadly, Barrow and Ulverston have lost some buildings from this elaborate style of traditional theatre - although the Coronation Hall survives to give a feel of the golden age of public entertainment.  

Barrow's last permanent base for professional theatre was lost in 1973 with the demolition of her Majesty's Theatre on the corner of Albert Street and Shore Street.  

A playbill survives from 1808 advertising the comedy, The Irish Widow, at the Dalton Theatre - probably an occasional base for travelling players. 

One of Ulverston's Georgian theatres, appropriately in Theatre Street, is now an auction room and visits by travelling theatre performers are known in the town from at least 1775 - a year before the American War of Independence. 

The first recorded show in the town was She Stoops to Conquer, possibly staged in a barn belonging to the White Hart Inn. 

That back to basics approach is being adopted on Friday July 29, from 7.30pm, when an open air performance of Hamlet by The Festival Players Theatre Company is being held in Ford Park, Ulverston, as part of 400th anniversary tributes to mark the death of William Shakespeare. 

Performances of plays in his lifetime - often bawdy affairs - were generally hated by both government and the church but in a neat illustration of how things have changed, Ulverston Parish Church is joining the anniversary events. 

It is to host Shakespeare in Song from 1pm on Friday, June 17, featuring soprano Raphaela Papadakis and Sholto Kynoch on piano. 

The concert features a range of music inspired by work of the great bard, including pieces by Schubert, Haydn, Schumann and Strauss. 

Another big change in recent years has been the move of cinema from the town centre to out-of-town shopping sites. 

The multplex, with several screens, has emerged from the gradual closure of smaller and competing venues. It Barrow it has seen the end of places such as the Coliseum and the Ritz - facing each other across Abbey Road - the Essoldo, Electric Cinema, Palace and Regal.