Stand-up, scriptwriter, actor, author and musicals-maker Ben Elton will become the latest recipient of an Aardman Slapstick Comedy Legend Award when the UK’s biggest festival of silent and classic screen comedy puts on its 20th birthday edition in Bristol in February, taking spoofs, satires and parodies as a major theme.
The event featuring the presentation to Ben Elton of a personalised model of the Aardman character Morph will be the finale to the 35-event programme Slapstick will be staging at various city centre venues from Wednesday 12 to Sunday 16 February 2025.
The award to Ben puts him in the Slapstick hall of fame with the likes of Barry Cryer, Reeves & Mortimer, Michael Crawford, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, The Goodies, French and Saunders, Barry Humphries (to name just some). On receiving the accolade Ben Elton said: "What an amazing honour to join the pantheon of Aardman legends. I would have liked to have pulled off a perfect pratt fall to celebrate but at 65 I’m worried I’d do my back in. I may slap a custard pie in my face though because I am truly thrilled and grateful”
Unveiling the full programme online today (Tuesday 8 October) to coincide with the launch of ticket sales, festival director Chris Daniels says: “We’re thrilled Ben Elton is making his Slapstick debut to receive our ‘Legend’ award. His deft use of ridicule in a wide array of TV classics, such as SATURDAY LIVE, THE YOUNG ONES, FILTHY RICH AND CATFLAP and BLACKADDER make him the ideal choice in the year we’re taking an especially close look at satire. Provides the perfect excuse, too, to share some very funny examples of his work.”
Other celebrities taking part in the festival’s showcase of satire will include
- Stephen K. Amos, sharing his comedy heroes and introducing Mel Brooks’s BLAZING SADDLES as his favourite film
- Samira Ahmed hosting a 60th anniversary screening of DR STRANGELOVE and a debate about the place of satire in today’s mad world
- Nigel Planer, saluting his late, great, co-star Rik Mayall and in a separate event revealing more about two of his own parody characters, Neil from THE YOUNG ONES and luvvie Nicholas Craig, self-styled ‘sage of the stage’
- Robert Lindsay and Sir Michael Palin taking a look back at Alan Bleasdale’s G.B.H. in which they co-starred
- Lucy Porter opening a three-film look at 1920s silents poking fun at Soviet Russian politics AND
- Alasdair Beckett-King providing an intro to THE GREAT DICTATOR, Chaplin’s masterful take-down of Hitler, tyranny, racism and extremism.
In addition, Aardman co-founder Peter Lord will host a family friendly celebration of Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit; Graeme Garden will be talking with Samira Ahmed about the women who worked with THE GOODIES; Rick Wakeman will celebrate his friend Ian Lavender and Ian’s work as a cast member of DAD’S ARMY and there will be clips and chat shows involving Adam Hills, Robin Ince; Mike McCartney of The Scaffold fame and Paul McGann; and, coming over from Canada, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, for a big screen showing + Q&A of HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, the zany homage to silent comedies in which he stars and co-wrote and which is already heading for cult status.
As ever, the festival will also feature a package of rare, rediscovered &/or newly restored/ re-issued comedies from the silent film era, each accompanied by live music, and with a Keaton. Chaplin. Laurel & Hardy triple bill as the centrepiece of its Valentine’s Day Silent Comedy Gala.
Chris Daniels added: “Slapstick has grown in ways I never imagined when the festival began in 2005. Back then, it was all about keeping an interest in silent comedy alive. Of course, Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Harold Lloyd and their peers are still in the mix, backed by enthusiastic celebrity champions. But it’s good that the festival now also celebrates more recent examples of screen comedy and a thrill that so many of their cast members and writers are happy to join us.”
Full details of the Slapstick 2025 programme, ticket prices and booking options can be found from Tuesday 8 October on the festival’s website: www.slapstick.org.uk. Slapstick news is also available via the festival’s Facebook, Instagram and X (ex-Twitter) accounts and by signing up via the website for free e-newsletters.
Slapstick is a not-for-profit organisation. The festival’s principal funders are Aardman Animations (www.aardman.com) and BFI (www.bfi.org.uk) awarding funds from the National Lottery.
Pictured: Ben Elton between festival regular & board member Peter Lord (right) and founder-director Chris Daniels (left)
