Tonight...Charlie Chaplin

It is 1959. Charles Chaplin is 70 years old, talking across the years to the young Charlie Chaplin - the Little Tramp who was never allowed to speak in the silent movies. Now he has a voice, confronting his older self and revealing the passions and torments that formed his life. Charlie Chaplin was the very first icon of the silver screen and is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood. But what of the man behind the moustache? The director holding the camera as well as acting in front of it? The cockney boy beneath the stage make-up? Born into poverty and hardship and in the absence of his father, he spent most of his childhood in and out of orphanages and workhouses. Charlie survived by making himself invulnerable. This exuberance later became part of his screen persona. The Little Tramp always picks himself up and walks jauntily into the distance.