Pierre Etaix

The star of the current Bristol Slapstick Festival indulged us all by appearing in person at nearly all of the performances of his films. For some of us, merely to be on the same planet at the same time as the neglected clown-genius of film-making was good enough. But here he was, before the great, the good and the fans, receiving his Aardman Award from Peter Law: a lifesize statue of Morph. Etaix' body of work is small, but every one, be it feature or short, is a gem, and his influence has spread through the work of disciples who include such luminaries as J L Goddard. This afternoon we were treated to  one of the more famous shorts, inevitably La Rupture . I first saw it and Le Grand Amour; the one about automotive beds becoming transports of guilty delight, back in the 'Sixties thanks to the indulgent kindness of Glasgow's Cosmo Cinema, despite the tortuous copyright contract that kept them from the screen for so long.

The rest of the Festival has been as good as it gets: a gala performance of Keaton's timeless The General and - did I say the great and the good? faces to see this time include Terry Jones, Ian Lavender, Gryff Rhys Jones, Bill Oddie and Kevin Brownlow, who if not up on-stage introducing films were thronging with the masses.