City Lights

If seeing Hugo has given you a taste for silent comedy, this is the cream of the crop.

If seeing Hugo has given you a taste for silent comedy, this is the cream of the crop. Actually made after the arrival of the sound film, it’s the touching and hilarious tale of a tramp who falls in love with a blind flower-seller. Charlie Chaplin performs a brilliant series of slapstick jokes, from the opening when the Tramp gets his trousers caught on a statue, to the boxing match at the climax where he uses the referee as a shield. No excuse is needed to show City Lights, but we can now claim Charlie as a local boy; last year it was discovered that he was actually born in a caravan on a fairground in Smethwick.

Recommended for ages 6 and up.