SLAPSTICK SECURES ONE-OF-A KIND DATE WITH HARRY ENFIELD & HIS COMEDY FAVOURITES
The multiple award-winning comedian and actor Harry Enfield is the latest star to join the line-up for next February’s 20th birthday edition of the UK’s biggest festival of screen comedy, Slapstick.
In what is a rare live stage appearance, Harry Enfield will be at the Bristol Old Vic on Sunday 16 February (6pm start) to share with fellow comic Robin Ince his favourite film and TV comedy moments and their influence on the many memorable characters he has created.
Slapstick’s director Chris Daniels says: “This will be a very special one-of-a-kind event. Harry Enfield hardly ever makes live stage appearances and it is rarer still to hear him sharing insights into the many characters he’s woven into the nation’s consciousness, among them his astute satire of Thatcherite economics, Loadsamoney; the well-meaning but hopeless Tim Nice-But-Dim, the hormonal teenage duo Kevin and Perry (with Kathy Burke) and, with The Fast Show’s Paul Whitehouse, radio DJs, Smashie and Nicey”.
Tickets for Harry Enfield’s Top Comedy Moments are on sale now via the Bristol Old Vic box office (www.bristololdvic.org.uk; 0117 987 7871), priced from £16.50. Booking links can also be found on this website
The addition of the Harry Enfield event means only an announcement about the host of the festival’s flagship Gala is needed to complete the programme of Slapstick 2025, which runs from Wednesday 12 to Sunday 16 February in venues close to Bristol harbour.
In all the festival is putting on 35 events with other highlights including:
- Ben Elton receiving an Aardman Slapstick Comedy Legend award for his many contributions to a genre getting special attention in the 2025 programme: satire
- Rick Wakeman hosting a salute to his great friend Ian Lavender and Ian’s work as a cast member of DAD’S ARMY
- Samira Ahmed talking with Graeme Garden about the women who worked with THE GOODIES
- Stephen K. Amos, sharing his comedy heroes and introducing Mel Brooks’s BLAZING SADDLES as his favourite film
- Nigel Planer, saluting his late, great, co-star Rik Mayall
- Lucy Porter opening a three-film look at 1920s silents poking fun at Soviet politics
- Adam Hills trading stories with Mike ‘McGear’ McCartney about the showbiz moments Mike has captured on film thanks to his lifelong passion for photography
- Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Anil Gupta reuniting to look back at the impact of their ground-breaking comedy series GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME and consider its legacy
- Peter Lord, Aardman co-founder, introducing a Wallace & Gromit bill that will include a big screen showing of the newest in the series: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL