Charlie Chaplin Shorts with Live Accompaniment, Ciné Lumière

Charlie Chaplin first stepped into the Tramp's shoes in 1914, and 100 years later his iconic character is still something cinema-goers treasure. The Institut Français are showing a trilogy of two-reel pics featuring the Tramp - all of which Chaplin directed - from his prolific period in the 1910s, when the entertainer was earning a staggering $670,000-a-year to make films for the Mutual Film Corporation, all accompanied by live piano.

Each 20-minute film explores a different aspect of the human condition, all tempered by Chaplin’s trademark observational and slapstick humour. The first billed is The Immigrant, a film in which Chaplin takes the title role as a tramp battling his way across the Atlantic as a mistreated refugee, falling madly in love with a fellow traveller. It's followed by action-comedy Easy Street, and then The Rink, in which Chaplin plays a mischievous flat-footed restaurant worker who takes a break to go ice skating, with - you guessed it - hilarious results. 

The accompaniment to all three will be played by BFI Southbank-based Stephen Horne, one of the country's leading silent film pianists.