Digital Detox - My Great, Great, Great Grandfather's Magic Lantern

The Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology are hosting My Great, Great, Great Grandfather's Magic Lantern at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life on Sunday 6 December, from 2pm to 4pm. It's a winter afternoon session, and the whole thing is built around a magic lantern—one of those early slide projectors that would have been a proper event in its own time.

Sara Basquill is the one behind the show, and it's as much about the machine as it is about the slides. The first part looks at the lantern's original owner and how it was used in Sunday School, so you get a sense of where the thing actually came from. From there, the presentation mixes the history of the lantern with slides from the same era showing Lincolnshire scenes and personalities, alongside Victorian joke slides and a short eight-slide Cinderella story. The aim is to recreate what a proper Victorian magic lantern slide show would have been like—the kind of thing people would have gathered around to watch long before screens were everywhere.

It's presented as a seasonal winter afternoon, and the ticket includes tea, coffee and mince pies, which fits the December date. There's no hybrid audience here—it's in person only, so you'll be in the room with everyone else. The Museum of Lincolnshire Life is on Burton Road, LN1 3LY, and the whole thing runs from 2pm to 4pm on Sunday 6 December, with tickets at £8.00.