Slapstick celebrates gender rebels

Demonstrating to Gen Z wokesters that there’s nothing new under the sun, the Slapstick Festival presents a special event this month that celebrates the many witty ways in which gender roles have been subverted on screen.

Taking place at the Watershed on Saturday 22 April, Gender Rebels is presented by writer and historian Pamela Hutchinson, award-winning performer, filmmaker and playwright Malaika Kegode and Bristol’s reigning City Poet Kat Lyons. The event comprises three screenings and a free debate.

I Don’t Want to Be a Man

First up is I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1918) – an early silent short film by German-American The Shop Around the Corner and Heaven Can Wait director Ernst Lubitsch. It’s the story of high-spirited teenage girl Ossi, who scandalises her guardians with her smoking, poker playing and hanging out with unsuitable men. Fed up with being forced to conform, she hits the town disguised as a chap, whereupon she discovers that this masquerade brings both advantages and disadvantages. The screening includes live piano accompaniment from Meg Morley, an introduction from Pamela Hutchinson and a post-screening panel debate on how a wide range of movie-makers have used comedy to explore and disrupt ideas of gender.

Marion Davies in Beverly of Graustark

Next, there’s the UK premiere of the newly restored silent comedy Beverly of Graustark. A big box office hit back in 1926, this gave star Marion Davies a wonderful dual role as the American cousin of the Prince of Graustark, a fictional European monarchy, who decides to impersonate him when he’s unable to turn up in person to claim his birthright. Alas, she promptly falls for his bodyguard. Now restored in 4K, including the big Technicolor finale, the film is presented with piano accompaniment from Meg Morley and introduction by Kat Lyons.

Finally, it’s fast forward to 1982 and Blake Edwards’ Oscar winning musical screwball comedy Victor/Victoria, which was one of the first films to take issues of sexual identity seriously. A remake of the 1933 German film Victor and Victoria, this warm and funny romcom casts Edwards’ wife Julie Andrews imaginatively as a struggling soprano who’s persuaded by her gay drag artist chum (Robert Preston) to pretend to be a man pretending to be a woman to get work as a nightclub female impersonator in 1930s Paris. She quickly becomes a huge hit and causes a great deal of confusion –  not least to besotted heterosexual Chicago businessman King Marchand (James Garner). This one’s shown with an introduction from Malaika Kegode.

Tickets are on sale now, price £15 for a pass giving access to the full programme or £8.50 (£5 concessions) each for any of the films. They can be booked from the Watershed or through Slapstick’s website.

Main pic from Beverly of Gaustack. All images supplied by Slapstick.