The festival kicks off on Thursday 21st January with a gala of classic screenings, new music and live entertainment, with special festival guest Michael Palin in an evening hosted by Graeme Garden. The Festival then continues until Sunday 24th January with an array of screening, talks with clips and rarities, both from the silent era archives and by the people who kept the visual comedy tradition going – from Fred Karno, Laurel & Hardy, and Harold Lloyd to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The Goodies, Neil Innes, Monty Python and Kenny Everett.

Television globe-trotter, author and comedian Michael Palin will be in Bristol on Thursday 21 January to set the 2010 Slapstick festival off on a four-day celebration of silent comedy which explores why Slapstick comedy is such a hit in so many countries and its impact on later generations of comics, including Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The opening event “Something Almost Completely Different” will take place at Colston Hall hosted by Graeme Garden and with ex-Python Michael Palin as the chief guest. Other highlights will include a big screen showing of one of Buster Keaton’s greatest comedies, The Navigator, set to a brand new score played by a live five-piece band (The Virtuosi) which boasts triple Oscar-winning animator Richard Williams on cornet.

Slapstick 2010 then continues with 12 more unique events providing a laugh-out-loud journey through film and television comic history, guided by expert commentators and celebrities such as Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer, Neil Innes, Paul McGann and Chris Serle; film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Robinson, writer Tony Staveacre and Culture Show host, Matthew Sweet, among others.

Festival director, Chris Daniels, says: “The line-up for Slapstick 2010 is our best yet. We’ve found some amazing gems in the vaults that no-one will have seen before, uncovered international treats that will be entirely new to UK fans, and we’ll be looking at the followers they inspired, via tributes to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Kenny Everett, The Pythons and more.”

The programme will also include an announcement about the winner of the sixth annual Slapstick Award for Excellence in the field of visual comedy.

This year’s Slapstick is taking place at Arnolfini, Colston Hall and Watershed, all in Bristol’s city centre, and, for the first time, at the Jesters Comedy Club, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, which, fittingly, is housed in a former silent film cinema.

Tickets for all events are on sale now. For more details, contact the venues, pick up a brochure or see www.slapstick.org.uk

Slapstick is a Bristol Silents event. Its chief funders are Aardman Animations and South West Screen.