Charlie Chaplin – A Kennington Kid

‘The Kid’ (1921) written, produced, directed, edited, and starring Charlie Chapin was his first full length feature film. It is considered a landmark in cinematic history. For its background Chaplin drew heavily on his own recollections of his childhood, growing up in poverty in the Kennington area of South London.

The talk looks at the houses he lived in, the stories behind plaques that now commemorate that fact, and the circumstances that led him to those addresses. It also looks at the Lambeth Poor House (now the Cinema Museum) where he was sent with his mother and brother and Kennington Park where he and his brother would be forced to wait until late into the evening when their step-mother locked them out of their father’s house whenever he wasn’t home. It will look at some of the Kennington pubs associated with Chaplin’s father and uncle, including the Three Stags where he last saw his father alive. It will also look at some of the events and characters linked to the area and the late Victorian era which led the development of his iconic Little Tramp persona. For example the comic strip Weary Willie and Tired Tim which appeared in Illustrated Chips and was cited by Chaplin, who went on to appear in his own comic strip, as a childhood favourite and key influence on his comedy. Finally a look at how Kennington was depicted by Chaplin himself in his 1964 autobiography, in the 1992 biopic, starring Robert Downey Jnr, and the 2006 Broadway musical Chaplin.