The Library’s current festive display celebrates the Gray’s Inn Miscellany: past and present.
The original Miscellany was founded in the early 1970s by (later) Treasurer Sir Gordon Slynn and others, as a spontaneous students’ revue in the spirit of 16th Century revels. During the earlier years of the revival, Miscellany was comprised of an array of music, poems and readings, many of which were self-written.
It has since grown into a pantomime-adjacent show of songs and sketches performed by Gray’s Inn’s most talented members. The first ‘modern’ Miscellany, which merged the revue show with the Inn’s pantomime, was performed in 1999. The show was called ‘A Lad in Boots or the Mare of London : A Pantomime in One Act (by many who can’t!)’
Now an annual tradition, hailed once by Master Gwynfor Evans as the Inn’s “beating heart,” (Graya News 44), Miscellany brings together students, pupils, barristers and Benchers on an annual basis to provide an evening of unforgettable festive entertainment.
Our display walks users through an array of previous Miscellany performances, sharing photographs, posters, and reviews from in Graya News. We revisit some of the earliest Miscellanies such as the ‘Pirates in Pinstripe: Under Treasurer’s Island’ show of 1982, and looks back fondly on more recent shows like 2009’s ‘Gray’s-Inn-Derella’ or last year’s ‘Cirque-du-so-Gray’s’.
Come into the Library and find out which performance included magic tricks, which had world travel via hot air balloon, and when Miscellany included a poetic performance from His Majesty the King.
