[Charles Chaplin] does not seem satisfied with the hearty laughs that used to greet him, but seeks to embroider his farce with touches of pathos that make one uncomfortable with their incongruity.

It's a brilliant combination of light and darkness, tenderness and violence and, yes, laughter and tears.

There's an edge to The Circus that suggests a man gazing deep into the void, laughing at the darkness and urging us to do the same.

Suffice it that Charlie has gone back to the elementary principles of custard pie comedy, and has proved that it is in this simplified, unpretentious form that his genius is most thoroughly at home.