MALMESBURY’S famous abbey will emulate one of the world’s greatest cathedrals next week when The Hunchback of Notre Dame is screened on its vast east wall.

The classic 1923 silent movie, starring Lon Chaney as tortured bell ringer Quasimodo, will be shown during a colourful and varied programme of events that make-up the abbey’s annual Holy Week Festival.

The Vicar of Malmesbury Abbey, the Rev Canon Neill Archer said: “Last year the surprise success was the silent movie with live music.”

As the sun set outside the abbey, and with just a few discreet candles flickering inside, the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera, which also starred Chaney, was shown to a delighted audience.

Now they are probably going one better by screening a film that is set almost entirely inside an early medieval cathedral.

Coincidentally, work on Notre Dame in Paris, where the film of the Victor Hugo novel is set, began in 1163 - less than 20 years before the "substantial completion" of Malmesbury Abbey in 1180.

That makes its hallowed interior an almost perfect venue for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of the most successful silent films of all-time.

As with last year, celebrated keyboardist Anthony Hammond, who has given recitals across America, will play the abbey organ throughout the proceedings.

Mr Archer: “We switch out the lights, wait for the sun to set, and then project a silent film onto the great east wall of the abbey as Anthony Hammond improvises on the organ.”

The film will be shown on Tuesday, March 27 at 7pm. Tickets are £5 (£3 students).

The public is being urged to arrive early to secure a seat.

Other festival events include “beautiful classical music, art depicting the Stations of the Cross, daily prayer and a maze-like prayer labyrinth, and Easter celebrations broadcast by BBC Wiltshire.”

Some less predictable elements will see comedy, jazz, blues, a science forum and musicians from London’s Royal Academy of Music.

Mr Archer said: “For me, to have a heavyweight evolutionary scientist like Professor Simon Conway Morris speaking on the resurrection and comedy from one of Miranda Hart’s writers, Paul Kerensa, sets us up for a very special week.”

The complete brochure for this year’s festival is available in the Abbey or online via the Abbey website www.malmesburyabbey.com.