Slapstick Festival: Gala, Gloria Swanson…

Bristol is a melting pot for all kinds of artistic endeavours. And one annual highlight is the Slapstick Festival, which returned to Bristol for its eleventh year last week.

It is reassuring to know that, despite today’s inventive and computerised cinema experiences, audiences still flock to events like Slapstick. Contemporary audiences may be indulged with surround sound and computer-generated imagery (your lead has died mid-filming? No bother. Just finish his scenes off via digital manipulation), but they still suck up the treats of silent comedies, slapstick movies and live musical accompaniment.

One of Slapstick 2015’s opening events was a screening of the 1924 comedy The Marriage Circle (pictured) at Watershed, with live harp music by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, who performed a semi-improvised score of her own composition complete with hilarious sound effects. Lucy Porter introduced the film with her reliably pithy insights before leaving us to enjoy the movie. Actors Marie Prevost and Adolphe Menjou star in the feature about two married couples in which one half of each pairing thinks they’re married to the wrong person.

Over at Bristol Old Vic, Victoria Wood introduced a double bill of Gloria Swanson comedies, with a few behind-the-scenes titbits suggesting that Ms Swanson may not have been the easiest of ladies to work with. She did, however, make some darn fine films.

First up was Teddy At The Throttle (1917), concluding with our heroine sending up the already tired cliché of female movie characters being tied to the train tracks. Next was Gloria’s 1925 slapstick sensation Stage Struck, in which she pastiches her own Hollywood diva image by playing against type as a dowdy waitress who dreams of becoming a glamorous actress and winning the heart of a handsome chef. With opening and closing scenes in Technicolor, Stage Struck is also a fascinating insight into the huge advancements of movie technology at what was still such a primitive time.

The festival’s annual highlight is the Gala at Colston Hall, hosted this year by Chris Addison. With his send-ups of Bristolian curiosities (“I love your insistence on naming all of your cultural venues after the most evil of institutions: the Colston Hall, the Tobacco Factory…”) and genuine love of slapstick shining through, Chris and his boundless enthusiasm were the perfect guides for the evening.

Among the treats on offer were a live performance by a Laurel and Hardy tribute act (Philip Hutchinson and Tony Carpenter), and former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman playing his score for the 1929 L&H short Big Business. The latter was possibly the highlight of the entire festival, following Stan and Ollie on their efforts to sell Christmas trees and resulting in a fight so farcical and intelligent that it could easily have inspired all three series of Bottom.

Also on offer was the early Chaplin short The Immigrant (1917), where Charlie displayed his true dedication to the art of attempting to stand upright on a moving boat. This and the main feature, Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances (1925) were both accompanied by Gunter Buchwald and the Bristol Ensemble. And what better way to watch such films than in a huge hall with hundreds of other people, replicating the way our ancestors would have watched them almost 100 years previously.

Slapstick 2015 took place from Thursday, January 22 to Sunday, January 25 at Watershed, Bristol Old Vic and Colston Hall.
For updates on future Slapstick events, visit www.slapstick.org.uk/events