Full Slapstick programme announced

Always a guarantee of big larfs in that coldest and cruellest of months, next January’s 11th annual Slapstick festival offers your first opportunity to see Laurel and Hardy on stage in Bristol since 1952. (No, really – Stan and Ollie played the Hippodrome on their final European tour). OK, so it’s not the real Laurel and Hardy but Tony Carpenter and Philip Hutchinson’s much-acclaimed stage show Hats Off to Laurel & Hardy. Introduced by Private Pike himself, Ian Lavender, this explores how the duo got together and recreates some of their funniest scenes. It’s at the Watershed’s Waterside 3 on Fri 23 Jan.

Slapstick has already announced most of its key guests as well as the programmes for its Colston Hall Gala and Seeing Double weekend at the Bristol Old Vic. See our earlier features here and here for full details. Now it’s been revealed that the special guest screening her top comedy moments on Sun 25 is Shappi Khorsandi.

As a warm-up for the festival, which runs from Jan 22-25. Aardman co-founder Peter Lord will be showing up at the Watershed on Saturday 17 Jan to talk about Morph, the little fella who set the whole Aardman ball rolling. He’ll be revealing how an innovative Kickstarter campaign funded Morph’s return to the screen for 15 brand-new short films. Have a look at their Kickstarter page for more on this. He’ll also premiere the last of those films, Chas Express, which stars Morph and his occasional clay-mate Chas. [See video, above, for one of the new Morph shorts]

Slapstick regular Lucy Porter takes the show on the road for the festival’s first London event, introducing two Gloria Swanson comedies at the Barbican on Jan 25. She’ll also be at the Watershed on Slapstick’s opening day, Thur 22 Jan, to introduce Ernst Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle – a rollicking tale of marital misadventure starring two of silent cinema’s best female stars: Marie Prevost and Florence Vidor.

Other highlights include Graeme Garden‘s Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy – Apart! (Watershed, Thur 22 Jan), which takes a look at Stan and Ollie’s under-appreciated solo work; fellow Goodie Bill Oddie‘s celebration of forgotten silent clown Harry Watson Jr. (Watershed, Fri 23 Jan), star of The Mishaps of Musty Suffer (er, geddit?) film series from 1916-17; and a screening of Vera Iwebor’s documentary Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room (Watershed, Fri 23 Jan), which tells the fascinating, frequently shocking story of silent-era child star and Slapstick patron Diana Serra Cary.

A couple of old TV shows are also being celebrated at the Watershed on Sat 24 Jan. Anyone who’s old enough to remember Crackerjack may be delighted to learn that Don Mclean (not that one) will be in conversation with Chris Serle about the show’s short silent comedies featuring himself and Peter Glaze. Then there’s the rather incredible Do Not Adjust Your Set, which ran on ITV from 1967 to 1969. You’d never get a show like this commissioned for kids these days. It starred pre-Python Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, plus a young David Jason as parody superhero Captain Fantastic. In between the frequently surreal sketches, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band popped up to warp children’s minds further. The show also featured early animations by a certain Terry Gilliam. Ex-Bonzo Neil Innes, the show’s female star Denise Coffey and Goodie Tim Brooke-Taylor (who appeared in two episodes) will be revisiting the show’s finest moments in conversation with Matthew Sweet.

For more on the festival, see the Slapstick web site. To book tickets for the Seeking Double events, see Slapstick at the Old Vic. For Opening Night Gala tickets, see the Colston Hall site. For details of all events at the Watershed go here