In the late Victorian era, ‘respectability’ was a major concern of citizens. The concept had a powerful influence, although its implications were different for the elite and for the working class. This contribution analyzes its social effect and the different debates about how to ensure respectability triumphed over its opposite – the ‘vulgar’ and the ‘common.’ The mass entertainment industry between 1880 and 1900 is taken as a case study, since immense efforts were made to render it respectable. Its principal place of business, the music hall, had become a place where millions of working-class people met a minority of elite customers, and where ambitious entrepreneurs had to juggle the demands of popular audiences, the need for profitability and the pressures of moralist licensing authorities. Debates, court cases and songs are analyzed. Finally, an attempt is made to compare ‘respectability’ to the twenty-first century concept of ‘anti-social behaviour.’