CHARLIE CHAPLIN: THE GOLD RUSH
Ensemble 360 & George Morton
Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Monday 19 October 2026, 7.15pm
Tickets:
£23
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s
Silent film with live music
CHAPLIN (arr. Timothy Brock) The Gold Rush (85’)
Charlie Chaplin’s most ambitious and successful silent comedy is presented in a gorgeous restoration with Chaplin’s own Academy Award-nominated score performed live by Ensemble 360 and friends, conducted by George Morton.
The Gold Rush follows two hapless prospectors in search of fortune during the Klondike gold rush. It features everything that made Chaplin’s name across the globe: acrobatic slapstick, poignant romance, high-octane dance and dazzling stunts. The iconic film combines riotous comedy and piercing social insight as Chaplin’s most celebrated on-screen character “the little tramp” walks the tightrope between humour and tragedy.
Packed with some of the most memorable moments from Chaplin’s films, including a dancing dinner rolls routine and a meal of a boiled shoe, combined with unprecedented technical marvels such as a cabin teetering on a cliff edge, this timeless classic was, in Chaplin’s own words, “the picture that I want to be remembered by”.
Following two previous sold-out concerts featuring live music with silent film, Saint Saëns’ L’assasinat de duc de Guise (1908) and Edmund Meisel’s Battleship Potemkin (1925), Ensemble 360 and George Morton return for their most ambitious and large-scale collaboration yet.
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CHAPLIN Charlie, The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin began his career in Hollywood in 1914, initially working for Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios (of Keystone Cops fame), reeling off a new film almost every week. By 1925, the year he produced The Gold Rush, a now-autocratic Chaplin had refined his craft, finding his own unique recipe for slapstick, pathos and sheer cinematic joy that helped to make him, probably, one of the most famous people on the planet.
The Gold Rush was inspired by the true stories of hopeful prospectors flocking to the Canadian Klondike region in search of their fortune in the late 19th century. In about 90 minutes, Chaplin somehow combines a tale of loneliness and starvation with Chaplin’s down-on-his-luck tramp character’s ability to stumble, quite literally, on joy and success in the most unlikely scenarios.
Chaplin edited the film for a new release in 1942, now with the addition of sound effect, narration and a musical score (the original film was released 2 years before the first ‘talkie’ and 15 years before he would make his first full sound-film). This score, which as you’ll hear, heavily lifts from Chaplin’s composer idols Brahms, Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, amongst others, was reconstructed by Timothy Brock to be performed alongside the original 1925 silent-version of the film (with Chaplin’s original intertitles). Lush, rich, sometimes balletic, sometimes delightfully silly, Chaplin’s music brings the Gold Rush to life in a way only live music can. Join us as we delve into the golden age of Charlie Chaplin’s silent comedies with a film he himself said he wanted to be remembered by.
George Morton 2026 ©
“A delightful blend of slapstick humour, poignant emotion and social commentary”
Rotten Tomatoes, 98%
Ensemble 360
