The Lab’s 30th Anniversary was celebrated by a musical (?) extravaganza, in the Senior Common Room (now The Courtyard Restaurant), “Oh What a Lovely Lab”, inspired by the Joan Littlewood 1963 musical “Oh what a Lovely War”. (Her musical “used facts and statistics, juxtaposed with reminiscences and versions of songs of the time, as an ironic critique of the reality of the war”. It was but a short step from the history of the First World War to the history of the Computing Lab!)

The stage was arranged with two projector screens, either side of a mysterious large object concealed by a white sheet. The performance started with the entrance of a very fetchingly and skimpily dressed Maria Coleman, accompanied by Ron Kerr wearing a dirty old Mac and playing “The Stripper” on his ghetto blaster. He put the ghetto blaster down, turned up the volume, and the “strip” commenced. However it was performed by Ron rather than Maria, all the way down to a leopard-skin loincloth, whereupon Maria whisked away the white sheet, revealing a huge gong (borrowed from the Music Department), which Ron struck with a large mallet, parodying the standard opening of all the J. Arthur Rank films.

A small be-gowned choir then marched in, to the music of “Oh What a Lovely War”, singing “Oh What a Lovely Lab”.

Then using photos and text slides about the Lab. and contemporary events in the outside world, occasional narration, interspersed with old and new Lab songs, the Lab’s thirty-year history was revealed.

The performance ended with Ian Scoins parading in, resplendent in a billowing masonic cloak, holding a large banner emblazoned with Harry Whitfield’s (internal) Computing Laboratory Motto: “All Assistance Short of Actual Help”, to the tune of a re-worded “Land of Hope and Glory”.

The images below are a scan of the script.