Slapstick Festival starts tomorrow - featuring an award for a comedy hero

Slapstick Festival starts tomorrow - featuring an award for a comedy hero

Posted on: 13 Feb 2024

This year’s recipient of the Aardman Slapstick Comedy Legend award is Robert Lindsay – and they’re holding a special evening with the beloved actor to celebrate.

 

Tomorrow, Wednesday 14 February, marks the start of one of Bristol’s biggest film festivals – and one of the biggest celebrations of silent comedy around – The Slapstick Festival. Since 2005, this labour-of-love festival programme has celebrated every pratfall, swinging ladder and pie-in-the-face cinema has to offer from pioneers like Buster Keaton up to more modern cinema inspired by original Slapstick.

 

With Slapstick also comes a number of prestigious awards: chief among them the Aardman Slapstick Comedy Legend award – a lifetime achievement award that celebrates the work of contemporary comedians who have contributed significantly to comedy. Previous recipients have included French & Saunders, Sir Ken Dodd OBE, and Barry Cryer OBE. This year’s recipient? None other than Citizen Smith himself, Robert Lindsay.

Best known, as mentioned, for his role as Wolfie ‘Power to the People’ Smith in seminal sitcom Citizen Smith, Lindsay is also beloved for appearing in My Family, and a host of cameos over the years from Absolutely Fabulous to The Office.

 

To celebrate Robert Lindsey and the award, a special evening is going to be held at the Bristol Old Vic on Sunday 18 February. The hour-and-a-half special evening will see Robert Lindsay sharing stories and clips from across his prolific career, before receiving his award – in the form of a special take on Aardman’s morph, custom-made to look like Lindsey and his role as Wolfie Smith.

 

 

Lindsay isn’t the only legend to appear at Slapstick this year, however – the jam-packed programme includes some weighty names, such as a screening of Brazil with an appearance from Terry Gilliam himself (recipient of another Slapstick award), the slapstick Gala featuring guest host Hugh Bonneville, as well as appearances from Sylvester McCoy, Adam Hills & more.

 

For tickets to ‘Celebrating the Onscreen Comedy of Robert Lindsay', or to see the entire Slapstick festival programme, head to their website.

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Patrick Bate

Patrick is a filmmaker with so much Bristol in his blood the white blood cells are graffiti'd. Educated at the Northern Film School in Leeds, he’s returned home to be a Videographer and Reviewer for 365Bristol and BARBI. When he’s not messing about with cameras, he enjoys playing guitar, spending far too much time on tabletop RPGs, and being an awful snob about cider. Have a look at his work here, or get in touch at patrickb@365bristol.com.