Silent horror film 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' screened with a live musical score by MINIMA at the Norwich Playhouse.
The Norwich Film Festival brings The Cabinet of Dr Caligari to Norwich Theatre Playhouse on Saturday 7 November, with the Bristol-based ensemble MINIMA providing a live score. It's part of the festival's 2026 programme, which runs from 6 to 15 November, and it's presented as an immersive live experience rather than a straight screening.
Robert Wiene's 1920 silent masterpiece helped define German Expressionist cinema. Its distorted sets, jagged architecture and sinister shadows created a visual language that continues to influence horror more than a century later, and it's widely hailed as the first true horror film. Made in the aftermath of the First World War, the story follows the mysterious Dr Caligari and Cesare, a somnambulist apparently able to predict the future, whose world turns into a nightmarish mystery as a series of murders begins.
MINIMA have specialised in live accompaniment to silent film since 2006. They work with cello, double bass, mandolin, guitar, dulcimer, synthesiser and percussion to rewrite the film's atmosphere for a modern audience, so the score is something they build in the room rather than a recording playing in the background. The combination of the original imagery and a live band changes the experience from a silent film you watch to something you hear as well.
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The screening starts at 7:30pm and runs for 1 hour 20 minutes with no interval, so you're in and out in one go. Tickets start from £25.44, and the Playhouse is at 42-58 St Georges Street, NR3 1AB.
