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In this special live performance by the Dodge Brothers, we combine their exuberant skiffle sound with William Wellman's 1928 melodrama BEGGARS OF LIFE, an early sound film featuring Louise Brooks as a girl forced to flee the country after murdering her violent foster father. Assisted by Jim, Richard Arlen's young vagrant, she masquerades as a boy and embarks upon a rail-riding adventure through all walks of life in an attempt to evade the police and escape to Canada.

Offering a powerful insight into American subculture, BEGGARS OF LIFE is both thought provoking and uplifting, qualities mirrored to great effect by the Dodge Brothers' soundtrack. Using motifs redolent of old railway songs and melodies influenced by those of the period, it is imbued with both bittersweet nostalgia and a joyous sense of celebration, managing to be both idiosyncratic and utterly authentic at the same time.

The Dodge Brothers features Mike Hammond (lead guitar, lead vocals), Mark Kermode (bass, harmonica, vocals), Aly Hirji (rhythm guitar, mandolin, vocals) and Alex Hammond (washboard, snare drum, percussion). Culture Show presenter and film critic Kermode, the Dodge Brothers' energetic bass thumper, cites the main preoccupations of the band's distinctive music as "trains, heartbreak, alcohol and death".

This meeting of live music and film promises to be an exhilarating exploration of love, conflict, poverty and the thrill of the journey, creating an electric atmosphere and a compelling study in humour and heartbreak.

This presentation of BEGGARS OF LIFE will include "honorary" Dodge Brother Neil Brand providing accompaniment on the piano.