Smile: The Story of Charlie Chaplin

Silent movie music, a title card on a screen – then a thin man in baggy pants and tight jacket walks out, a hat sitting atop curly hair, and a trademark moustache perching on his expressive mouth. It couldn’t be anyone other than Charlie Chaplin, and Marcel Cole has captured his look and movement perfectly.

Cole opens with a recreation of the silent classic ‘The Gold Rush’, his exemplary physical theatre skills on show as he leans on an invisible bar, gets chased by a policeman (plucked from the audience), and tries to eat the leather of his shoe. It’s a marvellous act, capturing Chaplin’s glances that must show so much when you have no words beyond the handful that make it as title cards.

Cole’s show contains the highlights (and a few lowlights) of Chaplin’s career, from being in a circus with his brother Sydney, then being discovered on an American tour to become a movie star. Chaplin’s reluctance to create ‘talkies’, concerned his particular style wouldn’t work with spoken words, means the first half of Cole’s show has him entirely silent, save for a few whispered directions to his supporting actors pulled from the audience.

The audience participation is part of the show – you’re going to catch Cole’s eye at some point and you know he’s saving you for later. But it’s fun, not stressful – and that involvement is essential for this show to work as well as it does.

When Cole finally opens his mouth, the story progresses through controversial films such as ‘The Dictator’ and his call to appear at McCarthy’s Un-American Activities Committee before the man and the country agreed to part ways.

Cole shows Chaplin as a clown, a comedic genius, but also as an imperfect man who fell in and out of love a lot. He is respectful of Chaplin, perhaps treading too lightly and humorously over some of his indelicate scandals, but Cole shows us a man who changed the shape of cinema both in front of and behind the camera.

Smile will certainly make you do just that.

Review by Mark Wickett

Click here to read our Adelaide Fringe 2025 reviews