There are those who believe that everything that could be written about Charlie Chaplin has been written, but this book will completely destroy that theory. Never before has so much original research been done to establish just where, when, and with whom, Chaplin spent his time on the stage, before going into films. The book contains almost every single appearance Chaplin made in the UK and, for the first time ever, the ones he made in Vaudeville, during four years touring the US America and Canada with the Fred Karno Company of Comedians.
Along the way many myths and mistakes, from other works on Chaplin, will be corrected, and many lies and legends exposed. But, in destroying the negative, a positive picture will be built up of the very medium which created the man and the screen character “Chaplin.”
Scores of previously unpublished photographs and illustrations complement the text, and reveal unknown facets and facts about the stage work of Chaplin. Also published for the first time ever are extracts from the scripts of most of the plays and sketches in which Chaplin appeared. These include: The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes; Mumming Birds; Jimmy the Fearless; The Wows-Wows; and A Night in a London Club.
Contemporary newspaper reviews from all the productions Chaplin played in, along with plot descriptions, considerably help to complete the picture of the influences which affected Chaplin’s later film work. Read and be amazed!
(Posters from the Marriot Collection)
