He is one of the Covent Garden street performers and from what I heard from his fellow performers, he is from Iran and has been in the UK for years.
He told me it was getting more difficult to connect with audiences because a twenty-five year old doesn’t know who Charlie Chaplin is. In the 1980s and 90s Charlie Chaplin films were on TV, and they knew the character he was playing, but now they think he is Hitler, he said.
Steph the ventriloquist was performing in the Square, extricating herself from a straitjacket while joking with the large crowd. Charlie said how much easier it was for a performer to get a large audience when they talk to the audience. Charlie mimes instructions in character to the volunteers he co-opts into his act.
When I showed him the photos in the viewfinder he said he had to watch his skin because it is dark and he had to keep out of the sun.