Slapstick 2020 promises to raise spirits in January
“Bigger and better” runs the happy, smiley PR mantra of every festival director, as they hype the upward trajectory of their wonderfulness year after year. Not Slapstick‘s Chris Daniels, though. “Although 2019 was fine and good enough, it wasn’t our best year,” he reflects. “We probably put too many events on and split our audience a bit. We had a number of events that didn’t sell as well as we’d hoped.”
Why the candour? Well, this matters to Bristol’s annual festival of silent and classic comedy because it is so heavily reliant on ticket sales. By ticking the right boxes and pushing the right buttons, other festivals are able to access sources of funding and subsidy that are not available to Slapstick. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. These festivals may be fulfilling important social needs. But they’ll still carry on and be proclaimed a success if only a few people turn up. Slapstick’s backers, Aardman Animations and the BFI, account for just 20% of the festival’s income. Hence the ruthless focus on ticket sales and the bottom line.
Fortunately, such is the ever-growing reputation of this not-for-profit annual laughathon that celebs continue to queue up to offer their services for free. What’s more, ticket sales for 2020 are way ahead of the same period in 2019. As we spoke in early December, five of the festival’s 25 events had already sold out. “This year I couldn’t be more proud,” enthuses Chris. “We’ve got a lot of really good stuff.”
He’s not wrong. Bristol-born Stephen Merchant returns to the city to share his love of Laurel and Hardy, frequent I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue panellist Rob Brydon relives his favourite moments from the show in conversation with its regulars, and Harry Hill presents a special ‘kidz show’ in which he offers his top tips for pint-sized aspiring comedians. Many Slapstick regulars are back too. The Goodies turn 50 next year (factual note: the individual Goodies are a lot older than this), which is all the excuse they need for a comprehensive celebration. Bill Oddie also hosts an event at which he celebrates the cartoon antics of Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner and Tom and Jerry. Elsewhere, the highlight for hardcore silent comedy enthusiasts is a strand of rare archive footage and recent discoveries curated by Serge Bromberg of French restoration specialists Lobster Films.
With the Colston Hall still out of action, Slapstick decamps to Bristol Cathedral for two big events: the annual silent comedy gala, whose centrepiece is the 4K restoration of Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality, and Shappi Khorsandi’s Slapstick Divas, which highlights the overlooked talents of the likes of the great Mabel Normand.
The latter is part of Slapstick’s mission to widen diversity in what, by its very nature, is something of a boys’ club. “It’s very difficult to find representations of diversity on screen because most of these films were made pre-1930,” acknowledges Chris. “But in terms of gender diversity, we do work hard to find people who are passionate about the subject and are in the public eye. So, for example, we have Samira Ahmed coming along for the first time this year.”
She’ll be joining forces with comedian and Slapstick regular Lucy Porter for what promises to be a fascinating look at the somewhat unwoke depiction of suffragettes in silent comedy. “It was seen as funny for men to dress up as women and act is if they’re unruly and wanton in daring to consider that they might be entitled to have the vote. But alongside that we’ve got documentary footage, so you can see what was really happening and what was portrayed on the screen.”
Would there not be potential for a parallel event in the festival’s classic comedy strand exploring the depiction of race in 1970s sitcoms? Chris isn’t entirely convinced. “I guess so,” he says carefully. “It would have to be very well contextualised. It’s not that we avoid this stuff. There are moments in some of the silent films that are uncomfortable and reflect the attitudes of the time. I can see some real value in the idea, but you have to ask yourself how much of this content is appropriate to be screened.”
Samira Ahmed makes her Slapstick debut in 2020
Back with the fun stuff, although Slapstick boasts a well-established ‘family’ of celebrity supporters who return year after year it continues to push forward with new ventures to avoid the danger stagnation. This year, there’s a comedy fundraiser – painfully titled Rolling Funder for the benefit of Dylan enthusiasts who enjoy a feeble pun – during the run of the festival itself rather than as an appetite whetter. Omid Djalili, Jon Richardson and Count Arthur Strong join forces with stand-up stars Lucy Porter and Angela Barnes for this event, which also marks Slapstick’s first foray into Bath. It takes place in the lovely, 1600-seat art deco Forum, which has been successfully snaffling many of the live music acts that would otherwise go to the Colston Hall. This is a particularly appropriate Slapstick venue as it was built as a cinema way back in 1934. Plans are already afoot for a separate silent comedy gala at the Forum in June if the fundraiser proves a success.
We’ve gathered together all the Slapstick Festival events below. Follow the links for full details.
