Born in Paris, where his father was a theatre manager, Charlot made most of his pre-Second World War career in the West End of London, where he successfully imported and adapted the Parisian genre of intimate revue.

It was an affluent household, based in the Rue Boissy d'Anglas near the Place de la Concorde, with staff including an English governess for the children.

His biographer James Ross Moore records that by 1902 Charlot was writing theatrical news and gossip for Parisian magazines and travelling to London to sign talent for the Théâtre du Châtelet.

From 1912 to 1914 Charlot was the manager of the Alhambra in Leicester Square, one of the West End's larger theatres, with a capacity of 4,000,[5] presenting spectacular, large-scale shows.

[1] In 1914 the British impresario Charles B. Cochran had an unexpected box-office success in the West End with what Moore calls a "bare-bones" revue.

[1] His Odds and Ends, starring his discovery Alice Delysia, dispensed with spectacular décor and huge casts in favour of a more intimate style with modest staging – one critic commented that Cochran had spared no economy in mounting the revue.

[8] A typical Charlot show featured a small orchestra, and onstage up to six stars backed by an ensemble who could all sing, dance and act.

[4] With the Great Depression, theatre attendance dropped dramatically, and Charlot was forced into temporary bankruptcy after the failure of his revue Wonder Bar in 1930.