A taste of silent film
Our Taste of Silents programme is a chance for everyone new to silent film to give it a try, and for those who are already fans to enjoy the rich and captivating world of silent films with live music, presented in Scotland’s oldest cinema. Taste of Silents will return later in 2025!
Previous programmes
Taste of Silents 2024
Our Taste of Silents season returned to the Hippodrome in Autumn 2024 with a wonderful programme of silent delights. Audiences had another chance to see the winner of the HippFest 2024 Audience Award The Flying Scotsman (1929), with live musical accompaniment from Jane Gardner, and they also made it a weekend of steam with the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway Steam, Steel, Road & Rails Gala which took place at the same time!
We celebrated the Golden Age of silent comedy with three shorts from comedy greats, presented by HippFest favourite Neil Brand. We enjoyed Charlie Chaplin’s classic The Rink, Buster Keaton’s The High Sign and Harold Lloyd’s Never Weaken, alongside stories and accompaniment on the piano in his inimitable style.
Finally, we marked spooky season with F. W. Murnau’s surreal 1922 cine-fable Nosferatu (1922), complete with original intertitles and live accompaniment by Hugo Max on viola and piano.
Taste of Silents 2023
Our 2023 Taste of Silents season included a screening of The Manxman (1929) with live accompaniment by Stephen Horne; The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) with live accompaniment by Mike Nolan; and Salomé (1922) with live accompaniment by Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison, which was introduced by Invisible Women - an archive activist film collective which champions the work of woman and filmmakers with marginalised identities from the history of cinema.
Taste of Silents Season 2022
Our 2022 Taste of Silents season was inspired by the BFI's In Dreams Are Monsters season, and returned with a chilling twist. Our 2022 Taste of Silents Season included The Hound of the Baskervilles (1929) with Mike Nolan; The Last Warning (1928) with Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison; The Ghost Train (1927) with John Sweeney; and Behind the Door (1919) with Stephen Horne.
Taste of Silents Season 2021
Easy Street (1917) and Wrong Again (1929) accompanied by Neil Brand; GRASS: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925) accompanied by Mike Nolan; The Epic of Everest (1924) accompanied by Stephen Horne; Chicago (1927) accompanied by John Sweeney; Häxan (1922) accompanied by Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison.
Taste of Silents Season 2019
Seven Footprints to Satan (1929) with a semi-improvised score by Jane Gardner for piano and violin (Roddy Long); Der Golem (1920)) with music performed by Stephen Horne, composer of the new restoration theatrical release; Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) with live piano accompaniment by Mike Nolan plus soprano Claudia Hausmann; Nanook of the North (1922) with live music by Sink ensemble.
Taste of Silents Season 2018
Pandora's Box (1929) with music by Jane Gardner and Roddy Long; The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) accompanied by Chris Davies commissioned for Bradford Animation Festival plus free drop-in art workshop and Q&A, in partnership with Film Hub Wales / Anim18; The Lodger (1927) accompanied by Stephen Horne; The General (1926) accompanied by Neil Brand
Taste of Silents Season 2017
Metropolis (1927) accompanied by DJ Vangelis; Safety Last! (1923) accompanied by Mike Nolan; Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) accompanied by Graeme Stephen; Blackmail (1929) accompanied by Stephen Horne
