Bandits! or The Collapsing Bridge centres on the earliest surviving motion picture filmed in a British theatre. Brief but amazingly eventful, it records the conclusion of The Bandits, a London Hippodrome sketch performed in 1902: soldiers give chase on horseback; a bandit queen fires a pistol; a mill explodes into flame; a bridge collapses in the millrush; a carriage and horses plunge into the millpond. All this – and more – can be seen in 89 seconds! The film clip was made early in a decade of melodramatic sketches that were given sensational presentation at the London Hippodrome between 1900 and 1909. The Hippodrome was then a major London variety theatre, and sketches like The Bandits were literally showstoppers, designed to bring the twice-daily bill to a spectacular conclusion as scenery collapsed, water cascaded, and animals cavorted