The Sound of Silent Cinema: Heritage Open Day 2026
Join us to celebrate the heritage of our magnificent pipe organ as it accompanies comedy classics of the silent screen!
Silent film musician Ashley Valentine will demonstrate and talk about the Dome's famous organ which was built in 1936. The organ can produce a vast array of different sounds, making it the perfect instrument to accompany silent comedy films. And after a ‘Felix the Cat’ cartoon to start you chuckling, we’ll be screening two of the very best!
Big Business (1929)
In this classic Laurel and Hardy caper, Stan and Ollie are door-to-door Christmas tree salesmen in sunny California. After annoying an easily-angered homeowner, what started as a minor dispute evolves into a no-win, destructive war of mutual retaliation! Will anyone (or any thing!) be left standing? (19 mins, U)
The Scarecrow (1920)
Buster Keaton stars as one of two farmhands who share a house of miraculous ingenuity: a gramophone that moonlights as a stove, a bath that converts into a sofa. Both men are rivals for the farmer's daughter, and what follows is a madcap chase involving escaped dogs, runaway motorbikes, and a wedding ceremony conducted at full speed from a motorbike! (21 mins, U)
All films are suitable for family viewing.
About Ashley Valentine
After studying piano with Gareth Green and Joan Dixon, as well as the organ with Marilyn Harper, Ashley has performed recitals at venues around the UK and in Europe. In the last year, he has worked with Streetwise Opera, The London Archives, The Royal Academy of Music, The Cinema Museum, ‘Le Giornate del Cinema Muto’ (silent film festival in Italy), and performed with the band 'Arcade Fire' on the Royal Albert Hall organ. In July, he performed at the National Theatre for the BFI's restoration of the classic 1928 John Ford western, 'Three Bad Men' (1926). He is a busy music arranger and the co-creator of the successful ‘Organoke®’ show. In the summer of 2023, Ashley volunteered with the charity 'Make it possible Ukraine' to teach displaced music students in Lviv, Ukraine and performed a recital at the city’s Organ Hall. He continues to raise funds, through music, on their behalf.
Ashley’s interest in silent films stems from his very first lessons with an elderly piano teacher. In her youth, she had accompanied film screenings on a cinema organ and told him many colourful stories of her work. When he later became a church organist at the age of twelve it was on Sunday mornings, before services, that Ashley discovered TV repeats of silent film comedies starring Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. He loved listening to the jazzy soundtracks and attempting to recreate them on his piano - and sometimes on the organ before services!
