London Month of the Dead - The Black Swan

A PHANTASMAGORIC CHRISTMAS A Grand Gothic Magic Lantern Show At Guy's Hospital Chapel with Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker on Saturday the 6th December 2025 at 7 pm 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 to find his name linked to so frivolous an apparatus. Yet within a short time, Magic Lanterns were being sold in London by the optical instrument maker Richard Reeve, and Samuel Pepys was among the first to purchase one. By the mid-18th century, Magic Lanterns had been adopted by travelling showmen and conjurors who recognised their power to astonish and terrify audiences with images of ghosts, gods and supernatural creatures. They were even used in necromantic displays that claimed to summon the dead. For more than two centuries, the Magic Lantern reigned as the dominant visual entertainment — until the arrival of cinema. This December, as winter darkness deepens and the festive lights begin to glow, Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker invite you to experience a Victorian Christmas Phantasmagoria. Using their authentic Triunial Magic Lantern, which combines three projectors in one remarkable device, they will conjure a fast-moving spectacle of 19th-century phantasmagoric images — a celebration of goblins, ghosts and seasonal mischief amidst the candlelit splendour of Guy’s Hospital Chapel. Pianist Costas Fotopoulos will provide a live accompaniment, bringing to life a show that captures the eerie wonder and ghostly cheer of Christmases past. Tickets £15 including a Gothic Punch and 20% donation to the King's Chaplaincy Trust to support medical students. Please click here to purchase. Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker present unique magic lantern entertainments using original glass slides and equipment from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries alongside modern slides of their own creation.Their shows feature an authentic triunial (or Triple) magic lantern combining three projectors in a single device. This is the most complex and rarest form of magic lantern entertainment. It allows them to present their fast-moving shows featuring the most spectacular effects the lantern can produce. Carolyn and Jeremy Brooker have been performing together for over 20 years to perfect this demanding art. Costas Fotopoulos Costas works internationally as a composer and arranger for film, the stage and the concert hall, and as a concert, silent film and jazz pianist. He is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM). Image credit - A "Phantasmagoria" startles the crowd. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

A PHANTASMAGORIC CHRISTMAS
A Grand Gothic Magic Lantern Show
At Guy's Hospital Chapel with Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker
on Saturday the 6th December 2025 at 7 pm

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 to find his name linked to so frivolous an apparatus. Yet within a short time, Magic Lanterns were being sold in London by the optical instrument maker Richard Reeve, and Samuel Pepys was among the first to purchase one.

By the mid-18th century, Magic Lanterns had been adopted by travelling showmen and conjurors who recognised their power to astonish and terrify audiences with images of ghosts, gods and supernatural creatures. They were even used in necromantic displays that claimed to summon the dead. For more than two centuries, the Magic Lantern reigned as the dominant visual entertainment — until the arrival of cinema.

This December, as winter darkness deepens and the festive lights begin to glow, Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker invite you to experience a Victorian Christmas Phantasmagoria. Using their authentic Triunial Magic Lantern, which combines three projectors in one remarkable device, they will conjure a fast-moving spectacle of 19th-century phantasmagoric images — a celebration of goblins, ghosts and seasonal mischief amidst the candlelit splendour of Guy’s Hospital Chapel.

Pianist Costas Fotopoulos will provide a live accompaniment, bringing to life a show that captures the eerie wonder and ghostly cheer of Christmases past.

Tickets £15 including a Gothic Punch and 20% donation to the King's Chaplaincy Trust to support medical students. Please click here to purchase.

Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker
Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker present unique magic lantern entertainments using original glass slides and equipment from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries alongside modern slides of their own creation.Their shows feature an authentic triunial (or Triple) magic lantern combining three projectors in a single device. This is the most complex and rarest form of magic lantern entertainment. It allows them to present their fast-moving shows featuring the most spectacular effects the lantern can produce. Carolyn and Jeremy Brooker have been performing together for over 20 years to perfect this demanding art.

Costas Fotopoulos
Costas works internationally as a composer and arranger for film, the stage and the concert hall, and as a concert, silent film and jazz pianist. He is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM).

Image credit - A "Phantasmagoria" startles the crowd. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons