ABSTRACT
It has long been accepted that British comedy took its own pratfall when Variety entrepreneur Fred Karno sailed for the US in 1912 taking with him two of the greatest silent clowns that the world would ever know – Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. 1 From that point onwards, received wisdom tells us that silent comedy was so dominated by Hollywood that there was little space, or need, for other national cinemas to compete. Silent comedy crossed language barriers and was easily exported around the world and Chaplin’s international reputation was unassailable.
