Television Reviews : Nice Acting, Mangled History in ‘Young Chaplin’

If Charlie Chaplin’s comedy ever seemed a touch too self-consciously poignant to you, curl up with your children in front of “Young Charlie Chaplin,” a three-part, British-made dramatization of his life before the age of 15, which begins tonight on “Wonderworks” (7 p.m. on Channels 28 and 50, 8 p.m. on Channel 15). But be prepared to rush to the history books to straighten out some gigantic poetic license.

The beautifully acted drama contains enough domestic horrors to make Charles Dickens rub his hands in glee and to fuel a lifetime of pathos. But unaccountably, producer-writer Colin Shindler has played fast and loose with the facts in order to give Charlie’s music hall singer-father (Ian McShane) a longer run and a stronger influence in his son’s life.

Charles Sr. wasn’t around to see young Charlie or his older half-brother, Syd, into long pants, or to perform a little dance for them with his fork and two rolls at a swell restaurant. He was dead of drink at the age of 38, when Charlie was 5 years old, and actually out of the family’s life when little Charlie was 1.

It’s unlikely that any child today could suggest the young Charlie’s talents: He literally took over the stage at the age of 5 when his mother faltered in her “Irish marching song” and so endeared himself to that rowdy music hall audience that they threw coins to him. Young Joe Geary, sturdy throughout, is best in the last of these three parts, where he must convince us of 14-year-old Charlie’s maturity and experience as a performer.

“Young Charlie Chaplin” succeeds best in Twiggy’s lovely watercolor sketch of Hannah Chaplin, the boys’ singer-mother, whose stage name was Lily Harley and who would haunt her son’s films forever as the exquisite, idealized woman. Cockney Twiggy is superb at suggesting the gaiety, the strengths, the tenacity of this frail reed, who could not stand the strain of her husband’s alcoholism and abandonment and was eventually institutionalized. Her moments in their basement flat when she creates little dramas from the boots and shoes of passers-by above are genuinely affecting, and her songs are lovely.

What a pity, though, that the production settles for hackneyed music (“The Band Played On”) when Twiggy could have done so much with the real English music hall songs of the time. You only have to remember Angela Lansbury, singing and pantomiming “Good Bye, Little Yellow Bird” in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” to see what wonders could have been.

And, in this hundredth anniversary year of Chaplin’s birth, wouldn’t it do him more honor--and be closer to the truth--to allow for the existence of genius, inexplicable as that quality is? Instead, young Charlie learns routines by watching (bad) slapstick chases in the streets around him.

With all these demurs, there is a delicacy to its performances and a willingness to deal with some of the bleaker elements of Chaplin’s life and his time, that makes “Young Charlie Chaplin” an interesting effort.