Never slow to blow its own trumpet, Birmingham now claims that it has both the best concert hall in the world (Symphony Hall) and the oldest (Birmingham Town Hall).  The boast is not entirely true: the Holywell Music Room in Oxford opened 86 years earlier than Birmingham Town Hall. But the bending of the facts is understandable as something akin to the former glory of the Town Hall is revealed when it reopens tonight after a renovation costing £35m.  The hall, an 1834 Midlands version of a Roman temple, was built by public subscription to house growing audiences for the Birmingham Triennial Festival. It was designed by Joseph Hansom (the project bankrupted him) and, when complete, was said to resemble an ocean liner anchored in a fishing village.  Mendelssohn's Elijah and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius were first performed here and in tribute to its great choral past, Handel's Messiah will be heard tonight, "reimagined for the future as an inspirational gospel and soul extravaganza". Dickens read here, Duran Duran and Bob Dylan played here, and the hall was home to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra until Symphony Hall opened in 1991.  The hall, listed Grade I, closed five years later following concerns for public safety (bits were dropping off the tops of the Corinthian columns). The building, described as dirty and murky, was placed on English Heritage's "at risk" register.  With the help of £18.3m from Birmingham city council, £13.7m from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3m from Europe, the hall has now been turned into a multipurpose 1,100-seat venue to be run as a "people's venue" in tandem with Symphony Hall.  It has been equipped for 21st-century events and audiences, with much clutter removed and access improved for disabled people. An enlarged bar should ensure that those who want an interval drink will get one. The modifications have been done with only the smallest extension to the hall's footprint in the heart of the city: 12 car-park spaces including the one assigned to the city's Lord Mayor have been swallowed up.  "The Town Hall was built for the community," said Mark Balkham, of consultants Rodney Melville and Partners, specialists in the repair and conservation of historic buildings. "The idea is now that it should be as flexible as possible. You can stage banquets, meetings and degree ceremonies here as well as concerts.  "I came here for a Salvation Army concert in my late teens and it will be great to see it in use again. The building had suffered a lot of changes. We have taken out a lot of the clutter and rationalised the space."  In 1927, a new ceiling (more florid than the coffered original) was constructed and a second gallery introduced, which obscured many of the hall's tall windows. The second gallery has gone and the ceiling, like the walls, has been painted in a delicate off-Wedgwood blue: paint-scrape tests revealed that the original colours had been muted.  The exterior limestone stonework, quarried in Anglesey and shipped to the Midlands mainly by canal, had suffered badly but another quarry was opened up to provide stone for repairs.  One patron who cannot wait for the reopening is councilor Ray Hassal, cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture on Birmingham city council. "The challenge has been to integrate modern facilities into a 170-year-old building," he said. "I can remember seeing Gene Pitney here and the hall is in a lot better shape now than it was then."
After a £35m renovation, the Grade 1-listed 'people's venue' celebrates its reopening this evening with a performance of Handel's Messiah.