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Chaplin, Nightingale Theatre, Surrey Street, Brighton, Fri 16 & Sat 17 May
4:13pm Thursday 15th May 2008
"He's a fascinating character, perhaps the first world-famous movie star," says Pip Utton of Charlie Chaplin, the subject of his latest one-man show.
"But he became famous as a different character, The Tramp, not as himself.
I was intrigued by what that might do to his feelings about himself, that a character in his films became more recognisable than he was."
The story unfolds in the hours before the comic's death in Switzerland on Christmas Day 1977, when "The Tramp comes back to haunt him, or at least talk to him". It incorporates a specially made film and sees Utton "stepping in and out of the screen".
Chaplin premiered in Edinburgh last summer and has already enjoyed successful tours across the US and Europe. As with Utton's acclaimed depictions of Adolf Hitler and Roy Orbison, he was driven by a desire to take an iconic, simplified figure and flesh him out into three dimensions.
"The problem with his work is we can't get our minds into the same mindset as the audiences in the 1920s, for whom moving pictures were magic," he explains. "In the 21st century, we have CGI and surround sound and everything else.
"But back then, when they watched Chaplin and he did his wonderful stunts, which were quite clever, it was groundbreaking, cutting-edge stuff."
Utton's last play was a portrait of irascible British artist Francis Bacon, which picked up an Argus Angel award at last year's Fringe. While he fell in love with that character, the same cannot be said of Chaplin.
"He had a pretty dark side. He very much liked young girls. A lot of the ladies in his life were barely legal at 14, 15, 16 years old," Utton says. "His last wife, Oona, was 18 years old to his 54 when they got married. He liked to control, to be in charge."
Performances of Bacon saw him downing two bottles of champagne a night, a feat which, regrettably, he'll be unable to repeat this year.
"Sadly, Chaplin didn't like alcohol," he says. "It's a real downer for me."
- £8.50/£6.50, 01273 709709
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