Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’ by Chaplin, C., Fra (2014/2014), Dirigent Timothy Brock, City Halls, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Music by Charles Chaplin, restored and conducted by Timothy Brock 100 years since his most famous character The Little Tramp appeared on screen, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Charlie Chaplin with a concert screening of his classic comedy Modern Times. A satire of the Great Depression and the dehumanising effects of industrial development, Chaplin is at his most inspired and biting in this (mostly) silent film from 1936. With Paulette Goddard as The Gamin, who joins the Tramp in escaping from the authorities and the big city, it features several of the most celebrated sequences in comic cinema. The score, by Chaplin himself, is performed in a restored version by Timothy Brock and includes a romantic theme that would be made famous through the hit song “Smile.”