Film / News
Event Cinema for January 2017
The big news this month is Slapstick – Bristol’s fabulous annual festival of silent and physical comedy, which runs at various venues from Jan 18-22. The big Colston Hall gala is included below. Follow the links and check out our comprehensive daily film listings for the full programme of events. Elsewhere, you can enjoy a boozy Hangover in Averys’ wine cellar, terrible ski psycho horror Iced with Bristol Bad Film Club, the series finale of Sherlock on the big screen and the RSC’s high-tech production of The Tempest – plus plenty of live and recorded ballet and opera.
Branagh Theatre Encore: The Entertainer
John Osborne’s follow up to Look Back in Anger was this play about sad, middle-aged, washed-up music hall star Archie Rice, set against the backdrop of post-colonial decline and personal tragedy. For the third production in his ambitious year-long residency at the Garrick Theatre, Ken Branagh takes the title role – which was, of course, originally played by Laurence Olivier. Rob Ashford directs.
Screening Jan 5: Curzon
Metropolitan Opera Live: Nabucco
Verdi’s third, reputation-defining opera gives it some serious choral welly. It’s based on the Biblical story of King Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), who imprisons and subsequently exiles the Hebrews from their homeland. Placido Domingo brings the titular baritone role to the Met under the baton of his regular collaborator James Levine.
Screening Jan 7: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
Royal Shakespeare Company Live: The Tempest
Bookish Prospero (Simon Russell Beale), Duke of Milan, is usurped and exiled by his dastardly brother Antonio. Stranded on a remote island with his daughter Miranda, he passes the time by becoming a great sorcerer – with a little help from deformed feral slave Caliban (Joe Dixon) and reluctant spirit Ariel (Mark Quartley). When the opportunity arises to exact his revenge, he conjures up a severe weather event. Simon Russell Beale returns to the RSC after 20 years to play Prospero in Artistic Director Gregory Doran’s ground-breaking production of the Bard’s magical play, which has made headlines for deploying motion capture technology more usually associated with Hollywood blockbusters to conjure up the kind of effects that have never been seen on stage before. Fortunately, the critical consensus is that the dazzling eye-candy in no way upstages the performances. This first RSC broadcast of 2017 is beamed live from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Screening Jan 11: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Curzon, Everyman, Cineworld Hengrove, Cineworld Yate, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
National Theatre Encore: No Man’s Land
Aging writers Hirst (Patrick Stewart) and Spooner (Ian McKellen) meet in a Hampstead boozer and then repair to Hirst’s stately pile nearby. Preposterous yarns and psychological power games ensue as the whisky flows and two sinister younger men return home. Harold Pinter’s absurdist comic classic was premiered back in 1975, when Peter Hall’s production cast Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud in the lead roles. This revival, which has already enjoyed a hit run on Broadway, reunites Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and director Sean Mathias after their acclaimed 2009 Waiting for Godot.
Screening Jan 12: Curzon, Orpheus
Screening Jan 15: Vue Longwell Green, Vue Cribbs Causeway
Bristol Film Festival: The Hangover
Taking place on the alleged unluckiest day of the year, this first Bristol Film Festival event of 2017 permits you to enjoy The Hangover while working on a hangover of your very own in Averys’ historic wine cellar with a mixture of low-percentage white wines alongside some formidable super-reds. Boozy cineastes get a glass of bubbly upon arrival, along with a selection of cheeses courtesy of Arch House Deli before the screening. The film itself will be accompanied by a tasting of four wines led by one of Averys’ resident experts. Advance tickets are available here, price £25.
Screening Jan 13: Averys
Following the success of the cinema simulcast of The Abominable Bride last year, the Beeb does it all again with this year’s feature-length Sherlock series finale. Typically, the Corporation has been inflating the hype by hinting that something pretty earth-shattering is about to happen to Dr. Watson and his Holmie (sorry). Conan Doyle enthusiasts will know that the original Final Problem story was the one where Holmes and Moriarty tumbled off the Reichenbach Falls. But they’ve already done that one, so it must be something else. Anyhoo, your incentive to haul ass to the cinema rather than slumping in front of the TV is 15 minutes of undisclosed “bonus content” to be screened as an amuse bouche.
Screening Jan 15: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
Conceived in Bristol by some of the folks behind the Oscar-winning The March of the Penguins, this campaigning documentary arrives with the Attenborough seal of approval (“The most important film of our time,” reckons the great man). Filmed in 20 locations around the world, A Plastic Ocean reveals the devastating global impact of plastic pollution and explores workable technology that could change things for the better. It’s backed by The Plastic Oceans Foundation and City to Sea Bristol and receives its premiere on the Aquarium’s IMAX screen. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the producers and representatives from The Plastic Oceans Foundation. Advance tickets are available here.
Screening Jan 19: Bristol Aquarium
Slapstick Silent Comedy Gala 2017
Rory Bremner hosts the annual Slapstick Festival gala at the Colston Hall. The centrepiece is a full screening of the restoration of the original campus comedy: Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman from 1925. One of the biggest hits of the silent era, this casts Lloyd in his familiar bespectacled nerd persona as a young student who attempts to achieve popularity – and win the heart of the lovely Jobyna Ralston – by joining the college football team. This was one of the earliest films to be selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” It’s accompanied by Carl Davis’s score, performed live by the 25-piece Bristol Ensemble conducted by Slapstick regular Guenter A. Buchwald. Impressionist and comedian Bremner’s association with Slapstick goes back to the 2012 Stand Up for Slapstick fundraiser. He’ll also be introducing classic comedy shorts from Laurel and Hardy (The Finishing Touch) and Buster Keaton (The High Sign), both of which will be accompanied by the European Silent Screen Virtuosi. For more on this year’s Slapstick Festival, see our news stories here and here. Full details of all events can be found in our comprehensive daily film listings starting here.
Screening Jan 20: Colston Hall
Metropolitan Opera Live: Romeo et Juliette
You know the story, so let’s cut to the chase: after runs at Salzburg and La Scala, Bartlett Sher’s production of Charles Gounod’s lush bash at the Bard comes to the Met. Reuniting on stage as the star-crossed lovers are Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo, who gave opera enthusiasts the horn, in a cultured kinda way, when they were cast opposite each other in Manon at the Met in 2015.
Screening Jan 21: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
Bolshoi Ballet Live: The Sleeping Beauty
Dastardly fairy Carabosse places an ‘orrible curse on baby Princess Aurora at the child’s christening. Sixteen years later, a prick causes the nubile royal to nod off for a century. Only a puckered-up prince can awake her. Premiered in St. Petersburg back in 1890, this evergreen classical ballet boasts Tchaikovsky’s greatest score and is trotted out on a regular basis. Choreographed by the legendary Yuri Grigorovich, it also boasts suitably lavish sets and costumes. The ballet is broadcast live from Moscow.
Screening Jan 22: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
That’s right: ‘Hot blooded couples fall prey to a cold blooded maniac’ in this first, suitably chilly Bristol Bad Film Club event of 2017. It’s a pleasingly crappy 1988 horror flick that follows the mandatory bunch of teens who are invited to the opening of a posh ski resort, where a dastardly old nemesis awaits them. Apart from the usual wooden acting, appalling dialogue and general ineptitude, this one has particular appeal to two distinct minority interest audiences: skiing enthusiasts and those who yearn to see the naked breasts of the actress who played little Wednesday Addams in the original TV version of The Addams Family (that’s Lisa Loring, fact fans). Profits from this screening will be going to Halton Haven Hospice. Advance tickets, price £5, are available here.
Screening Jan 26: Bierkeller
Royal Opera House Live: Il Trovatore
Opera doesn’t get any bigger, grander or – frankly – dafter than Verdi’s Il Trovatore. The plot makes no sense whatsoever, even by operatic standards: woman seeking revenge for the burning to death of her mother for witchcraft snatches the baby son of the man she holds responsible, but accidentally throws her own nipper onto the pyre by mistake. Easily done. So naturally, she raises the surviving child as her own. As you do. Still, never mind the implausibility, this is fabulously overblown stuff, best known for its Anvil Chorus. David Bosch’s production sets the four-act opera against the backdrop of war. This is its first revival. The opera is broadcast live to cinemas on Jan 31. Some venues also have encore screenings on Feb 5.
Screening Jan 31: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Odeon, Everyman, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
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