Daniel Anderson in The Tramp. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners) 
Charlie Chaplin was, for much of his Hollywood career, under the watchfully suspicious eye of closet queen and secretive cross-dresser, J Edgar Hoover. That’s among the many fascinating takeaways from the life and times of “the world’s first superstar” as told in the new Daniel Anderson cabaret-style musical, The Tramp, which is at Artscape’s Arena theatre for a short run.
Such lesser-known details from Chaplin’s life abound in this lively, yet intimate show. Rather than playing Chaplin himself, Anderson becomes his larger-than-life (and forever young) alter ego, the Little Tramp figure who early in his career came to define the movie star. It means the audience gets a direct connection to Chaplin’s inner voice, witnesses some of his internal torment through the lens of self-analysis.
Accompanied by a piano (played by Paul Ferreira), a few props (such as the Tramp’s super-bendy walking stick, his bowler hat and that moustache), and a simple set consisting of some boxes and a screen, the action is mostly conjured into existence by way of Anderson’s storytelling.
Peppering the performance are beautiful renditions of songs that might have little to do with Chaplin, but which add meaning, mood and psychological subtext to the unfolding story.
The choice of songs often takes you by surprise. When Chaplin’s arrival in America segues into
style="font-weight: 400;">Sting’s “Englishman in New York”, for example, it almost takes your breath away. Anderson’s rendition perfectly and succinctly captures a certain sense and sensibility — and conveys the loneliness that Chaplin quite likely experienced when he arrived in the US.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Daniel-Anderson-in-The-Tramp-Photo-by-Daniel-Rutland-Manners.jpg "The Tramp is showing at Artscape's Arena theatre. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners)")
There is, in support of the live action, also quite a lot of projected material: we see video snippets of Anderson playing at being Chaplin, archival footage of Chaplin himself, and sequences from several of his movies. While some of this helps set the scene or provide atmosphere, it’s also a bit of a distraction from what is, quite frankly, a performance that needs no backing whatsoever. He could probably do the whole thing under a single spotlight and still keep us enthralled.
Anderson’s manifestation of a frozen-in-time, fresh-faced Chaplin is uncanny. As with his Vincent, which has been touring the country for some time and which Anderson recently performed together with The Tramp in Edinburgh, the trick is his ability to disappear entirely inside the character. Apart from his honey-smooth voice and captivating presence, Anderson also exudes such empathy for the characters he portrays that you can’t help but fall in love with them.
And that’s despite everything that comes out in the wash as the many layers of Chaplin’s story come bubbling to the surface.
Apart from Chaplin’s prodigious talent and profound celebrity, it’s his reputation as a sex machine and his indefatigable outspokenness against a rising tide of authoritarianism that are most keenly illuminated in this show.
One moment it’s his tempestuous relationship with Hoover and his anti-communist minions we’re hearing about, the next we’re following a comic-book rendition of a paternity case as Anderson jogs us through a succession of courtroom characters in order to make sense of just one episode in Chaplin’s sometimes messy life behind the scenes.
Chaplin was certainly no saint, and that’s a point the show makes, that at the core of even the greatest celebrity, idol, star or figure of adoration, there is ultimately a flesh-and-blood being with desires, dreams, fears, and all that human chemistry and potential for failure that makes us who we are.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Daniel-Anderson-in-The-Tramp-Photo-by-Daniel-Rutland-Manners-1.jpg "Daniel Anderson plays Charlie Chaplin in The Tramp. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Daniel-Anderson-and-Paul-Ferreira-in-The-Tramp-Photo-by-Daniel-Rutland-Manners.jpg "Daniel Anderson in a scene from The Tramp. (Photo: Daniel Rutland Manners)")
Rather than trying to puzzle the man’s life out for us, The Tramp somehow gives us a firmer idea of some underlying mysteriousness, broadening the gap between what we think we know about Chaplin and who he probably was. By offering a glimpse of just a fraction of what is understood about the man, it serves to perhaps make him even less knowable, more confounding, and ultimately more human.
But, of course, humans are fallible, they make mistakes, they mess up. They fall in love with the wrong people, climb into bed with inappropriate lovers, have threesomes, and piss off FBI directors conducting a witch-hunt against suspected communists, like Chaplin.
Some might take away from the show the idea that Chaplin was a sexual predator, others will see him as the victim of an awful childhood. There were many facets to this movie star, but what’s most prescient about The Tramp is that it’s about an artist who refused to stay silent in the face of an authoritarian uprising.
To Chaplin’s own detriment, he threw his weight, his voice and his career behind the defence of liberal ideals such as free speech. Watching The Tramp, I could not help but imagine the film Charlie Chaplin would be making right now — about a certain authoritarian president who’d probably have had Chaplin swept up in a raid and deported. DM
The Tramp is playing at Artscape’s Arena theatre until 11 October.