Singer-dancer-actor Marcel Cole is one of our brightest and best.

He scooped the pools with his show The Ukulele Man, which won the Best Cabaret Weekly Award at Adelaide Fringe and the Critical Stages Touring Development Award at Sydney Fringe last year and Best Theatre at Newcastle Fringe this year.

Cole, who after training at the Kim Harvey School of Dance and finishing year 12 studies at Dickson College won a place at the NZ School of Dance in Wellington, studied for two years in NZ.

But after two years of studying purely ballet, called a halt and branched out into clowning, comedy and cabaret, enrolling at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier outside Paris, where he studied the “bouffon” style of the famous French clown.

Now at Tuggeranong Arts Centre on Saturday, he’s presenting his new physical comedy show, Smile, where he’ll play Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp.

Smile, directed by Mirjana Ristevski, takes audiences through Chaplin’s life and art, beginning without dialogue but using a combination of titles, music, and physical expression learnt in France, all the while dressed in baggy pants, with the trademark eyebrows and moustache of the tramp.

And what a story! British-born Chaplin lived through silent films and talkies, but, accused of communist sympathies, and reviled for his affairs with young women, was kicked out of the US and retired to Vevey in Switzerland.

One critic wrote: “One doesn’t know where Cole will move next, or which audience member he will cast in what role… the show becomes incredibly immersive and thoroughly entertaining as a result.”

When I catch up with Cole he tells me that Smile was developed in Manchester and France and around Australia but mostly in Canberra, with the help of a couple of friends.

One of them is Manab Sharma who, hailing from India, has in the past been involved in the Indian national mime championships.

“I didn’t know mime was so big in India,” Cole says, “Manab has done a couple of shows in my monthly variety show at Smiths so I presented my ideas to him and workshopped them.”

He also tried his ideas out on local escape artist Humph Cornthwaite, who’s been working on a play about Houdini.

As for The French Connection, he to Ecole Philippe Gaulier once before, has been back this year studying character masks for clowns and how to bring life to the masks.

“The great thing was that it allowed me to explore and showed me which direction to go,” he says.

Smile: the story of Charlie Chaplin, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Saturday. The Ukulele Man, Smith’s Alternative, November 15.