Photo: David Selfe, Anna Dunwoodie, Jeremy Fitzsimons & Rachel Gamby
By Rachel Gamby, Thames Music Group President.
I grew up watching Mad Movies, which featured snippets of many great silent films – so I had early exposure to the genre. As an adult, I’ve watched a few complete Charlie Chaplin movies, but I’ve never had a chance to experience one in a theatre with a large audience.
Thames Music Group (TMG) was offered a choice between two 2025 dates for a performance of Silent Movies Live, a Monday or Tuesday. It had to be an evening performance, because TMG’s concert venue is the beautiful Thames St. George’s Church, and there is no means to black out its windows.
TMG’s usual concert offerings are two monthly concert series, one on Fridays and the other on Sundays, both in the afternoons, so a mid-week evening event was a significant departure from our usual fare, and we were a bit worried that we might not get much of an audience. Nonetheless, we jumped at the chance to offer the Thames community not only an opportunity to experience Charlie Chaplin films with live accompaniment, but the chance to hear original music composed by David Selfe (pianist) and arranged by Jeremy Fitzsimons (percussionist). A prospect that made the opportunity even more appealing. We were happy to discover that the Thames community was as keen to come out on a September Monday evening to experience Silent Movies Live as the TMG committee was.
The evening was enchanting, even before the first of two films, ‘A Dog’s Life’ and ‘The Kid’, began. It began at the door – the audience was left in no doubt that they had come to the right place. As they entered, they were presented with a towering red Charlie Chaplin banner. The stage was a vision, too. Jeremy and David had tamed a staggering quantity of equipment and instruments into miraculous order in front of their portable movie screen. The array of percussion instruments was awe-inspiring. Blue lighting shone on their instruments, adding a magic touch.
Many in the audience had never seen a Charlie Chaplin film, and most had never seen any silent movie, let alone two, with live accompaniment. When the first film began, Chaplin’s comic genius immediately entranced us all, and David and Jeremy skillfully matched his genius with their own wit, invention, and perfect timing, creating a seamless, completely absorbing experience. Whether the action was hilarious slapstick or moving melodrama, the melodies, with perfectly synchronised crescendos, and an enormous variety of sound effects and sounds enhanced the action before our eyes, all the more impressive and powerful for being ‘live’.
During the intermission and at the end of the evening, throngs of people went up for a closer look at Jeremy’s array of percussion instruments and to ask questions. David asked Jeremy to demonstrate playing the saw – a real crowd pleaser.
Comments from the audience on the night and since have been uniformly positive: “Wonderful”, “Cool”, “Hilariously funny”, “So inventive”, “I can’t remember when I laughed so much”…. Silent Movies Live was the talk of the town! We’re already looking forward to and planning another.
Silent Movies Live event.
