Saturday 9 February 2013

Welcome back Charlie's Londoners



Hi all,

I am so sorry for the long delay in writing another post for you. I have been super busy lately with various Charlie and research engagements but now I am free to concentrate on a blog post....well, sort of!



For those of you who do not know, Charlie's London was in the audience for the annual Bristol Silents event that is Slapstick 2013. It was an absolute blast! Lots of fun, films and slapstick moments galore with some very close friends and supporters of Charlie's London. In fact there was very little Chaplin at this festival, ok there was next to no Chaplin at this festival apart from one moment.........



Now all you nice people out here who follow Charlie's London on Facebook will know we have this silly moment on Monday's called Fan Girl Monday. How did it start? Well funnily enough it was Christmas eve, everyone was rushing around and doing the normal pre-Christmas mad moment things when I received a message from a Charlie's London follower who said "Tomorrow is going to be a sad day for a Chaplin fan, should we do something today to make it a bit fun". At first I did not know what to do so I decided to look through the page for signs. Then it hit me! Everyone now and then we descend into Chaplinmania! It is like Beatlemania except with less noise (being the silent era, of course!) and no instruments. It always amuses me when I see comments like "Oh wow! I did not know Charlie was so handsome", so with that in mind the decision was made quite easily. Fan Girl Monday was born......

The Fan Girl Monday cover picture!


For any of you unfamiliar with the rules, here goes! Tuesday through to Sunday Charlie's London does what it says on the tin, it posts about Charlie in London or anything related to that. But on Monday everyone can go nuts. We have had Charlie in his bathing suit, Charlie by his swimming pool looking seductive, at the City Lights premiere with Albert Einstein, the infamous Cello picture, the list goes on. Well thanks to the last night of the festival Fan Girl Monday has its next contender because for 30 seconds about 20 minutes into Marion Davies' 1928 film Show People I sat there mesmerised by sight of a certain Mr Chaplin.......



I was really excited by the showing of this film for obvious reasons, yet there were also other elements I was looking for, mostly from the audience. Firstly how many people would recognise Charlie before the title was shown and what would their reaction be? Secondly I was sat with 8 followers of Charlie's London, 5 I knew and 3 I had met for the first time that weekend.  We of course all knew what was coming, My poor partner Kieran (far left in the photo below) knew more than most and just flashed me a knowing smile which I caught out of the corner of my eye just before the musicians struck up for the opening titles.



Charlie's Londoners waiting to go in to see Show People.


The whole festival and a review of it will be featured in Silent London very shortly, so keep your eyes peeled. For now I must say goodbye, but stay tuned because this week I will be talking about an amazing play that I recently visited to do with Charlie's early life in London......

See you soon everyone!

Ayse x