Festival line-up revealed

Ade Edmondson, Lee Mack, Christopher Biggins and Jo Brand are among the stars set to appear at Bristol’s Slapstick comedy festival in January.

The four-day event, running from January 25 to 28, is billed as the UK’s biggest festival of silent and classic screen comedy, with 23 shows lined up. 

Highlights include: 

• A strand, marking the centenary of the screen debut of silent comedy genius Buster Keaton with films, documentary, talks and a live stage show

• Tim Vine hosting a gala triple bill of silent comedy classics starring Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy with live music from the Bristol Ensemble

• Jo Brand sharing clips and memories of her favourite comedy moments

• Ade Edmondson and Nigel Planer re-uniting to look back at their work together on such 1980s TV hits as The Young Ones and Comic Strip Presents

• Christopher Biggins  giving an introduction to a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which he starred in.

• Bill Oddie opening The Goodies’ songbook with songs such as Funky Gibbon and Black Pudding Berth

• Lucy Porter paying tribute to two of the silent era’s best-loved female comedians, as part of a strand which also examines Europe’s ‘lost clowns’. 

• Barry Cryer remembering The Two Ronnies.

• Lee Mack saluting the comedy of Laurel & Hardy in a show featuring anecdotes, clips, and a full screening of the long-thought-lost, newly-restored, Battle Of The Century, accompanied live by the European Silent Screen Virtuosi. 

Festival director Chris Daniels says: ‘January can be a gloomy month but the next Slapstick festival offers such a wide variety of laugh-out-loud treats from almost every decade since screen comedy began that we’re sure this programme will brighten the mood of every comedy fan.’

‘We’re especially happy to welcome such top class entertainers as Jo Brand, Lee Mack, Ade Edmondson, Rowland Rivron and Christopher Biggins to Slapstick for the first time and equally glad that so many audience favourites from previous festivals will be returning, among them Robin Ince, Ronnie Golden, Nigel Planer, Tim Vine and more."  

For full details of the Slapstick 2018 line-up are on the festival’s website.

Published: 28 Nov 2017