The Iron Mule was a 1925 silent film directed by Fatty Arbuckle and produced by Buster Keaton. In it, an early steam locomotive – the “Twenty-Cent Limited” – puffs and blunders its way through the American interior with a hotchpotch of weird and wonderful passengers and a highly capable and endlessly harassed engineer. Cattle get in the way. Horses won’t do as they’re told. Tunnels aren’t tall enough. The locomotive escapes. Everyone falls acrobatically off something at least once.

It’s actually quite a hoot.

As is The Iron Mule Short Comedy Film Festival, running out of New York since 2002. We were hoping to get 2020 off to a flyer, so imagine the degree of chuffed-to-bits-ness we were elevated to when we heard that Iron Mule would be screening Making A Killing at their event on 6 January.

It then transpired that one of our fabulous leads, Tiff Stevenson, would be in New York that week promoting her latest tour. Being a thoroughly good egg all round, she offered to attend the screening and take part in a Q&A. And if that wasn’t reason enough to see in the decade with a throaty ‘huzzah’, Making A Killing left the building with the Audience Favourite Award!

All while I was sat on the A25 in the early hours waiting for my engine to pack up…