New score for Anthony Asquith’s Underground

Following the huge success of Blackmail in October 2010, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Barbican commissioned Neil composed a new full-orchestral score for Anthony Asquith’s 1928 silent ‘Underground’, which premiered on October 5th 2011.

Set in the London Underground and dealing with a love triangle that descends into madness and murder, this film is a wonderful mix of gritty thriller, warm romance and quirky magical realist drama – Virtually unseen for decades because of technical problems with the print, the gorgeous new restoration by the BFI National Film Archive places the film firmly amongst the greatest British silent films and, to my mind, even gives Hitchcock a run for his money.

Neil’s score for Hitchcock’s Blackmail

Neil’s score for Hitchcock’s ‘Blackmail’ received its UK premiere at the Barbican Concert Hall on Oct 31st, 2010, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra
– see Reviews. There are plans in progress for a new score for October 2011.

Neil’s live performances and film scores at London Film Festival

Neil had great success performing twice at 2009’s London Film Festival, once in Trafalgar Square with transport films showing London through the cinema’s eyes, and the following night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the Prima Vista Social Club (Gunter Buchwald, Romano Todesco, Denis Biason and Frank Bockius) for a gala Archive premiere of the BFI’s new restoration of Anthony Asquith’s UNDERGROUND (1928). The score was semi-improvised on themes written by Neil to great critical acclaim.

Hitchcock’s Blackmail – Bologna Film Festival 2008

Neil’s score for the silent version of Hitchcock’s ‘Blackmail’ for 60-piece orchestra for the Bologna Film Festival was performed to enormous acclaim before 5000 people on July 1st 2008, in the Piazza Maggiore by the Opera House Orchestra of Bologna, conducted by Timothy Brock. Plans were made with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for a London premiere in 2010. See review.

The Wrecker (film score)

Neil recently scored ‘The Wrecker’ (1929), directed by Géza von Bolváry, for DVD.

Scores for DVD releases and the BBC (2007)

Neil recently recorded scores for DVD releases ‘Mitchell and Kenyon in Ireland’, ‘The Open Road’ (BFI, both with Gunter Buchwald), Bluebell Railway No 3 (Bluebell/South-East Screen Archive) and The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Welsh Film Archive). The Silent Britain BBC documentary for which he composed the music is now available through Kino in the States – this DVD is available from BFI Film and Video.

The Cat and the Canary (July 2007)

Neil’s score for ‘The Cat and the Canary’ was performed to great acclaim at the New Zealand Film Festival in July 2007.

Dickens before Sound – DVD (2006)

DICKENS BEFORE SOUND, a DVD of Dickens-related silent material held by the NFTVA and featuring the full-length ‘Oliver Twist’ starring Jackie Coogan was released in August 2006 – scored throughout by Neil it also features textual soundtrack work by writer Michael Eaton and the wonderful Ken Campbell.

BBC season of films on BBC 4 – May 2006

The BBC presented a season of films on BBC4 in May 2006 on the subject of silent film:

SILENT BRITAIN, which Neil scored, is a 90-minute overview of British silent cinema, a subject which has never been approached in such detail before. Containing clips, scenes, interviews and anecdotes the film is a fascinating treasure trove of rarely seen material which will throw some much-needed light on a vanished art form. This has also been released as a BFI DVD.

PAUL MERTON’S SILENT CLOWNS is an opportunity to hear about the great silent clowns from a comedy expert (and comic legend in his own right) who has grown up knowing and enjoying this material all his life – four one-hour episodes deal with Chaplin, Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy and each episode ends with a complete short by that artist, scored by Neil. Chaplin’s ‘Easy Street’ is a live improv accompaniment recorded at Bristol Slapstick with German friends (and world-class improvisers) Gunter Buchwald on violin and Frank Bockius on percussion, Keaton’s ‘The Goat’ and Lloyd’s ‘Never Weaken’ are studio recordings featuring great session musicians including Sonia Slany on violin and finally Laurel and Hardy’s ‘You’re Darn Tootin’ has the 10-piece score commissioned by Paul from Neil for last year’s SLAPSTICK, recorded live at Pordenone Festival featuring Dutch and Italian musicians and the trouser-ripping sound effects of the entire audience!!

And finally, his TV adaptation of STAN, the Sony-nominated radio play from 2004, aired to huge critical acclaim – Jim Norton and Trevor Cooper played the older Stan and Ollie and Nik Howden and Mike Goodenough played the younger. The director was Jon Sen.

Neil’s score for E A Dupont’s Piccadilly (2005)

Neil’s new jazz score for E A Dupont’s Piccadilly was featured in a sell-out performance at the 2000 seat Barbican Concert Hall to great acclaim, (described by Phillip French in the Observer as ‘the cinemagoing event of the year’) and was performed live in the Piazza Maggiore, Bologna in July. It has now been released as a BFI DVD.