The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema will be making the most of this year’s silent sensation The Artist to attract the crowds.

You can’t run a silent film festival and not make reference to this year’s silent hit The Artist. Hence, the launch of the Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema will feature, amongst other things an Uggy lookalike in the form of Stella the dog. (The real Uggy is clearly exhausted after his recent press tour).

Now in its second year, the silent festival will take place at the Hippodrome Cinema in Bo’ness, Scotland’s oldest cinema, which will celebrate its 100th birthday as part of the festival.

The opening night gala will be the 1928 Hollywood comedy Show People, starring Marion Davies as Peggy Pepper (an inspiration for the heroine of The Artist, Peggy Pepper?), with pianist Neil Brand accompanying the film.

Other silent films to screen at the festival include Safety Last (the film that the young stars of Scorsese’s Hugo sneak into the cinema to see), British silent chiller A Cottage On Dartmoor and The Black Pirate starring Douglas Fairbanks Snr, as the closing night gala.

The full programme for the Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema will be announced at the launch on Feb 7.

The festival runs March 16-18.