Last Tuesday, SPAG members were transported back to a less complex world where entertainment was perhaps even more impressive to its audience than it is today.  Modern films use special effects to create vivid scenes which leave little to the imagination and often overpower our senses.  Andrew Gill’s Magic Lantern Show was therefore a delight.

Over 40 years Andrew has bought and sold over 250,000 Victorian glass slides and learned how to operate a magic lantern in order to recreate the kind of evening which would have been enjoyed by our ancestors in the 19^th century.

Using slides of between 90 and 150 years old, audience participation was encouraged as we tried to decipher the riddle which explained what we were to experience over the next hour or so.  Carefully scripted Victorian melodrama combined with appropriate slides created stories designed to tug at the heartstrings and introduce a loud ahhhh from the audience as the hero won the day (or sometimes not, according to Andrew)!

It was an evening of pathos, humour and Victorian ingenuity which enthralled the audience and maybe left us wondering if modern technology has gone too far.