Slapstick on course to pack ’em in

After the first Slapstick festival back in 2005, there was no ambition for it to become a key annual event in Bristol’s cultural calendar. Festival Director Chris Daniels wasn’t even sure whether his team of volunteers could pull together a second one. “We were actually physically exhausted at the end of it,” he recalls. “It was all done on love and no budget.”

Ten years on, audiences continue to grow and such is the festival’s national reputation that celebs queue up to get involved. [See the new Festival trailer, left.] Newcomers this year include Chris Addison, who hosts the Colston Hall gala; legendary prog rocker Rick Wakeman, who begged to join in after his best mate Ian Lavender told him how much fun it is; Stephen Fry, who’ll be taking part in a celebration of the late, great Viv Stanshall at the Old Vic; and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who are this year’s recipients of the Aardman Slapstick Visual Comedy Award. With the exception of Paul Merton, who severed ties with Slapstick after a very public spat some years ago, everyone who hosts an event seems eager to come back for more. These days, the Goodies, Barry Cryer and Neil Innes are Slapstick staples. “One or two of them ask, ‘Have you got anything for me to do this year?’ which is lovely,” says Chris.

There’s been a subtle shift in emphasis over the years as the festival embraces more recent ‘visual comedy’ as a gateway drug to the hard stuff of vintage silent comedy, which remains at the core of the programme. Celebrity involvement performs the same function. Chris cites the example of Victoria Wood, who hasn’t appeared on stage anywhere since the 2013 Slapstick gala. This year she’s back to share her enthusiasm for two early Gloria Swanson films, Stage Struck and the short Teddy at the Throttle. ” What’s lovely about that from my point of view is here’s somebody who’s motivated because they love the medium and they want to bring it to a bigger audience. If we ran ‘Stage Struck’ at the Watershed, we’d probably get around 150 people in. But if Victoria Wood comes to talk about her passion for Gloria Swanson, we’ll get a much bigger audience at Bristol Old Vic. But the real stars are always the on-screen performers. If the films are rubbish, people will never come again. The host is the conduit and it’s the films that work their magic with the audiences.”

A couple of additional high-profile comedians, whose identities we are sworn not to reveal, are expected to confirm their attendance in January. Chris admits that he’s always wary of the festival repeating itself (virtually every aspect of Neil Innes’s career has been celebrated over the years, for example) and is always eager to get new people involved. Top of the list is Bath’s very own John Cleese, though that’s proving tricky. “He’s very polite and very busy. The kind of thing we’d be inviting him to do would be similar to the show he’s already doing. So it’s not come about. But that’s not for want of trying.”

This year, the festival storms the capital, with an event at the Barbican hosted by Lucy Porter. “She’ll be introducing the same Gloria Swanson films just after doing an event with us. It’ll be like Phil Collins at Live Aid – she’ll be travelling by train to carry the torch of Slapstick from Bristol to London.”

Despite the recession (or, ahem, recovery, according to your politics), Chris says ticket sales are up across the board, from the tiniest niche event to the big Colston Hall gala, which is selling more quickly than any of its predecessors. Research shows that around 80% of punters are from Bristol, though people have travelled from as far afield as Australia and the USA for previous festivals. “I’m astounded that it’s going so well this year, because young people are increasingly accessing the medium of film through their iPads and Netflix and YouTube. You think, are they really going to pay £15 for a ticket to hear Barry Cryer talking about Morecambe and Wise?  But they seem to. It’s lovely to see that Bristol has embraced the festival as part of the fabric of what happens in the New Year, when everyone’s low and depressed.”

Slapstick runs from Jan 22-25 at the Colston Hall, Old Vic and Watershed. For more information about individual events, with trailers where available, see the what’s on listings. See also our previous news stories here, here, here and here. The Festival’s official website is here