FREE Outdoor Screening

After last year’s run-away success, Bath Film Festival and Bath & North East Somerset Council are staging another FREE ‘Cinema Under The Stars’ screening on August Bank Holiday Monday (27/8/12) in Parade Gardens, Bath.

We will be showing two Buster Keaton Classics – Sherlock Junior and The Play House, accompanied by live music from composer and pianist James Harpham.

Sherlock Junior (1924, certificate U, 45 mins). Buster Keaton plays a projectionist who dreams of becoming a detective. He puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend’s father’s pocket-watch with very amusing consequesnces.

The Playhouse (1921, certificate U, 18 mins). A film made famous by its opening scene where Keaton uses multiple exposures to play everyone in a theatre simultaneously. He is the band leader, all its members, the dancers on the stage and everyone in the audience. A definite crowd-pleaser!

James Harpham has been composing and playing for films, concerts and other media since 1962. He is passionately involved in accompanying silent films, for which he provides a complete concert on the piano, using material from the time of the film's production or before. Each score uses about 80 different slices of musical culture and takes about a month to assemble.

Parade Gardens in the centre of Bath are the perfect spot for a summer picnic and outdoor screening. For picnics, arrive at 8pm, films will start as close to 8.45pm as the light allows. Bring blankets, picnics and chairs, but please no alcohol or glass.

Entrance will be through the main gates at the top of the ramp. There will be a bucket collection in the interval to raise funds for the Bath Film Festival in November (14th - 25th) 2012.