Chaplin and Lauder film to be screened at new comedy festival

rare screening of the moment Charlie Chaplin and Sir Harry Lauder met on film is to be shown at a new comedy film festival.

The eight-minute film will be screened at the restored Campbeltown Picture House as part of the inaugural Scotland’s Comedy Film Festival (SCOFF).

A “short” made for cinemas in 1918, the film sees Lauder join Chaplin in some skits, including a mimicry of each other’s well-known gait.

The film was made to promote a fundraising project Lauder had set up for soldiers injured during the First World War in memory of his son, but it was never finished or shown publicly at the time. It will be shown as part of the Bunkered! strand of the festival, a proa gramme of Big Screen Comedy from the Archives.

Other film comedy which will feature includes Chic Murray visual gags, Stanley Baxter and Jimmy Logan being serious, and Rikki Fulton and Jack Milroy’s Francie & Josie act, while other films to be shown during SCOFF include Blazing Saddles and The Man in the White Suit.

SCOFF will run from 11 to 13 May.