The Film Explainer

Meet Andy Cannon, who has revived the almost forgotten art of Film Explaining. In the early days of silent cinema, theatre managers knew some of their audience would have difficulties reading the intertitle cards. To help them, the managers would use their showmanship to describe and comment upon the action on screen.

Today, as part of the fantastic Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema in Bo'ness, Andy recreated the experience, with musical partners Frank McLaughlin and Stewart Hardy, and it was a total treat - entertaining, informative, funny and dramatic. The shorts from the Scottish Screen Archive were poetic adaptation Auld Robin Gray; an Edinburgh travelogue; a polemic on the demon drink; and the highlight, an unintentionally amusing tale of Rob Roy McGregor from the Bearsden Film Club. Andy's commentary and Frank and Stewart's folk stylings made for melodrama in the truest sense of the word.

Should The Film Explainer Returns (Andy was around last year too) tour near you, don't miss it.

Also today, EdiSteve and I learnt a bit of Charleston in a dance class, and tonight we enjoyed 1925 drama The Goose Woman, enhanced by a newly commissioned score. Read all about the festival here, and remember to watch for next year's programme. The festival is a credit to the organisers, staff and people of Bo'ness - the friendliest town I've ever come across!