ARRIVAL INSTRUCTIONS - If you are coming from London Bridge station, please take the Guy's Hospital exit. You will see the new hospital straight ahead of you. Please turn right and a little further down St Thomas St you will find a courtyard marked with Kings College London. The Chapel is in this Couryard to the RIGHT of the vaccination centre.

The Magic Lantern was invented by 17th Century Dutch scientist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens, who also devised the pendulum clock and discovered Saturn’s moon Titan. Huygens, as an august and respected man of science was a little embarrassed at his name being associated with so frivolous an apparatus. Within a short time, magic lanterns were being sold in London by the optical instrument maker Richard Reeve. Samuel Pepys was an early purchaser of one.

By the mid 18th century Magic Lanterns had been adopted by travelling showmen and conjurors, who realised their potential for scaring audiences with images of ghosts, gods and other supernatural creatures. Magic Lanterns were also used in necromancy (communication with the dead). They remained the dominant visual medium for 250 years until the invention of cinematography.

In this show Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker will use their authentic Triunial Magic Lantern, combining three projectors in a single device, to create a fast-moving show featuring the most spectacular effects the lantern can produce. Using original 19th century phantasmagoric images they will summon up a celebration of goblins, ghosts and the downright weird amidst the Victorian splendour of Guy's Hospital Chapel. Costas Fotopoulos will provide the piano accompaniment.