Installing a music hall in a church basement is a profanation – not against the church, but rather the music hall. The form (the rough equivalent of our American vaudeville) was born in the rough-and-tumble taverns of Imperial England at a time when access to legitimate theaters was selectively restricted by law. The pleasures of song and patter that were the mainstays of the halls were meant to be enjoyed with spirits, and not the kind that inhabit heaven. By the late 19th century, however, the music hall had cleaned itself up somewhat, and it is this specific moment in cultural history that Theater Ten Ten (headquartered in the Park Avenue Christian Church) presents to us so charmingly in “A Little of What You Fancy: An Authentic British Music Hall.”

Like a church service, music hall is a highly formalized ritual – one in which congregants are handed lyric sheets and expected to take part in communal song. The proceedings are presided over by a gavel-wielding “chairman,” a direct predecessor to our modern master of ceremonies. The chairman’s job is to tell jokes, announce the acts, and cajole the all-too-reluctant modern audience into participating in the sing-along. As chairman here, the tuxedoed Bennett Pologe rules with a dry wit, a twinkling eye, and a singing voice not unlike Dudley Do-Right’s.

Mr. Pologe’s understated drolleries (no doubt copped from a century-old jokebook) alternate with the lively exertions of an ensemble of diverse musical-comedy types, who constitute a sort of representative smorgasbord of music hall’s greatest stars and hits. A wistful little tenor named Kristopher Monroe essays a number of love songs, notably “If You Were the Only Girl in the World,” a song popularized by George Robey (and later recorded by the likes of Perry Como and Dean Martin). Jean McCormick steps out in an army uniform in the tradition of Vesta Tilley (music hall’s premier drag king) for “Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier.”

The cavalcade is for the most part quite authentic. Greg Horton (a distant relative of music-hall star Billy Edgar) puts on a succession of comical foreign accents in “The Employment Agency” and executes the perennial Billy Murray tongue-twister “Which Switch Is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich?” Others in the cast include Christina Harrop, a beauteous operatic soprano in the Lillian Russell style; Anthony Morelli, a scrappy little ukulele player and professional clown, here portraying the token American; and Cristiane Young, a mountainous matron with the lovable presence of a Marie Dressler.

Songs made famous by Marie Lloyd, music hall’s greatest star (despite or because of her possession of the worst buck teeth in show-business history) get the greatest coverage. The evening is named after one of her numbers, “A Little of What You Fancy Does You Good.” Also included are the Lloyd hits “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-wow,” sung by the huggable Laurrinda Robinson, and “Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own,” performed by sundry females from the cast.

The title of the latter tips the wink to what music hall is all about. Don’t let the straw boaters and canes or the long skirts and parasols deceive you. As a race that simultaneously one of the wittiest and most repressed on the globe, the British are second to none at double entendre and innuendo. The most cherished music hall songs are positively ribald, such as Harry Champion’s notorious “A Little Bit of Cucumber” and Vesta Victoria’s “It’s Alright in the Summertime” (about the hazards of nude modeling) – both part of this the show. As presented here, however, the audience is provided with scant indication of any potential salaciousness in the material. Unless he or she has a dirty mind or listens very closely (guilty on both counts), the listener will perceive only quaint old songs, winningly performed by a game and knowledgeable cast.

In a way, I’m glad. For in this benighted era of incessant “edge,” of exploding fireballs, of teenaged pop stars tricked out like Tenth Avenue whores, what a breath of fresh air it is to spend two hours in the presence of gentility, class, sweetness, and sincerity. “A Little of What You Fancy” is not nearly enough.

Until May 29 (1010 Park Avenue, between 84th and 85th Streets, 212-288-3246).