Neil Brand presents Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, Lakeside, Nottingham | 18 June 2026 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Ruff

Photo credit: Lakeside

Neil Brand presents Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd

Lakeside, Nottingham | 18 June 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Ruff

“Neil Brand brings three silent film classics back to life.”

An evening of silent films with live piano accompaniment isn’t going to be everyone’s idea of fun (especially in a World Cup week) but for anyone who fancies some cultural time travel Neil Brand is the man for this highly specialised job.  There’s no one who knows more about the silent film era than Neil, an historian whose talent is to bring silent films to life through music.  He is simply one of the finest improvisers around, with every performance unique. 

He decides on a style and then watches, catching the mood of each scene and drawing the audience’s eyes with him through the detail of the music he is inventing at the keyboard.  His shows combine deep knowledge with the rare ability to make these century-old films feel alive and entertaining for modern audiences.

That’s no mean feat.  The slapstick world of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd sometimes seems a million miles from ours – but watching their antics in a capacity audience with Neil Brand as a human, musical bridge between our world and the mayhem on screen is an experience worth having.

 Chaplin’s The Rink came first.  It’s a masterclass of physical comedy in which Chaplin improvised as he filmed, fusing his bungling waiter ideas onto the possibilities of roller-skating.  I’ve tried hard over the years to find Chaplin funny and never really succeeded – but even I must admit that his seemingly impossible skating stunts are often a joy to watch, turning the rink into an arena in which anarchy meets social decorum in a ballet of total chaos.  The film also boasts a great supporting cast: the huge Eric Campbell, Edna Purviance in a romantic role and the wonderful Henry Bergman (in drag).  They often steal the show, proving that Chaplin’s role as creator wasn’t all about himself.

Then Buster Keaton took to the screen in The High Sign, whose plot has endless comic possibilities.  ‘Our Hero’ is hired as an assassin by a murderous gang (the Blinking Buzzards) to kill a rich miser…and then hired by that same miser as his bodyguard.  There are some classic sequences (as when he rigs a dog and pulley system to ring the bell for his shots in the shooting gallery) and a legendary finale.  For this Keaton designed a spectacular split-level cutaway set with trapdoors, revolving panels and secret passageways.  The camera captures four rooms on two floors at once with Keaton leaping between them in a hair-raising chase.  Neil Brand’s inventive, high-octane accompaniment was a tour de force throughout.

Harold Lloyd ended the evening with Never Weaken, whose plot would ensure that it could never be made today.  For a start, it plays suicide for laughs and then there’s the mind-boggling danger of its finale, set high above ground as a skyscraper is being constructed. There Lloyd performs amazing stunts amid the steel girders.  The overall plot is a bit daft but for those who like death-defying acrobatics (with no safety net and performed by a man who had lost fingers in an earlier accident), then this is essential viewing.

Neil Brand’s presentation and playing are key ingredients to the show’s success.  Indeed his energy and musical imagination transform the experience.  The films themselves remind us of how technology and taste have changed over the past hundred years.  Their plots are episodic, the slapstick is unrelentingly exaggerated and gender/class issues feel dated.  However, for the curious and open-minded, an evening with Neil Brand and the stars of silent films is both rewarding and surprising.

Neil Brand presents:

Charlie Chaplin in The Rink

Buster Keaton in The High Sign

Harold Lloyd in Never Weaken