Europe’s biggest celebration of silent and classic screen comedy, the Bristol-based Slapstick Festival, will be back from 14-18 February 2024 with a 20th annual edition featuring top-flight celebrity guests, salutes to favourite film and TV laughter-raisers and a new strand in which comedy meets mock horror.
Brochures and the Slapstick 2024 website detail more than 30 events at venues across Bristol and visits from Samira Ahmed, Alasdair Beckett-King, Hugh Bonneville, Marcus Brigstocke, Graeme Garden, Adam Hills, Harry Hill, Robin Ince, Robert Lindsay, Sylvester McCoy, Christina Newland, Lucy Porter and Tim Vine (to name just a few).
As ever, live music will accompany the festival’s traditional package of rare, rediscovered &/or re-issued silent comedies, including films from the 1920s featuring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Beatrice Lillie, Marie Provost and Norma Talmadge among many others. But the programme also takes in a collection of spoof or wacky horror flicks; the return of the Gala to the refurbished hall where it started; regional premieres of films from Harry Hill and Tim Vine; look backs at two once hugely popular sitcoms, a reassessment of the political clout of The Goodies and awards for Terry Gilliam, Robert Lindsay and the most darkly clownish Doctor Who, Sylvester McCoy.
Highlights will include:
- Paddington films star Hugh Bonneville hosting the Slapstick Silent Comedy Film Gala in the new-look Bristol Beacon’s main hall where films on the big screen will include Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush accompanied by the Bristol Ensemble.
- A clips-rich event during which Robert Lindsay will receive the Aardman/Slapstick Comedy Award honouring his many comedy performances including in May Family, Citizen Smith, and Alan Bleasdale’s political satire G.B.H.
- Python and filmmaker Terry Gilliam introducing his cult classic Brazil and later sharing insights into his career before receiving the Aardman/Slapstick Award for Visual Comedy.
- Harry Hill and Tim Vine hosting the South West premieres of their newest films plus the regional premiere of a delightful new documentary starring Stan Laurel’s touring hat, as part of a Marcus Brigstocke-hosted chat with its makers.
- Alasdair Beckett-King and Robin Ince kick-starting a strand of chills and chortles events with a screening of the original spooky house spoof The Cat and the Canary.
- A TARDIS-style look back at the long and varied comedy career of Sylvester McCoy, known to millions as the seventh Doctor in the BBC’s Doctor Who and as a wizard in three of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films.
- Broadcaster Samira Ahmed re-assessing with Graeme Garden whether the 70s/80s series The Goodies he co-created had more of an impact on social consciences than was realised at the time.
- A fresh look at the made-in-Bristol 1970s sitcom Big Jim & The Figaro Club – hailed in reviews as ‘an unsung masterpiece’ and a lost gem with some of its stars and its producer.
- Adam Hills, the Aussie host of Channel 4’s award-winning The Last Leg sharing his Desert Island Comedy Flicks.
Slapstick’s director Chris Daniels said: “February can be a miserable month, regardless of what’s happening on the world stage, but we’re certain the 20th edition of Slapstick contains enough variety and reasons to laugh out loud that it will lighten the mood of everyone who attends.”
Full details of the Slapstick 2024 programme and booking options are available on the festival’s website: www.slapstick.org.uk. Slapstick news can also be found via the festival’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Slapstick is a not-for-profit organisation. The festival’s principal funders are Aardman Animations (www.aardman.com) and BFI (www.bfi.org.uk) awarding funds from the National Lottery.
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