Charles Garland

Charles is a writer and composer, television producer and director.

His diverse career began at Birmingham Repertory Theatre as a dancer in a musical, and broadened to include working as an actor; musician; cabaret artist; restaurateur and after dinner speaker.

In the theatre, his acting ‘swan song’ was at The Old Vic Theatre in a production of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, adapted and directed by Peter Coe. Charles played five parts, and composed much of the incidental music, which he helped play on various musical instruments.

Soon after, Charles joined the BBC. His first assignment was as assistant to Sir Jonathan Miller for a new production of Cosi Fan Tutte. Following that, he worked on every type of programme – children’s shows such as Blue Peter; three Royal Variety shows; sketch and variety shows, including three years with The Paul Daniels Magic Show (don’t ask how it was done); as well as dramas; educational programmes and a stint as director of Top Of The Pops.

Sitcom became a large part of his working life, with Terry and June; Joint Account; and Last Of The Summer Wine as assistant producer, although most of his time was spent with David Croft OBE, on such shows as Hi-De-Hi!; ‘Allo ‘Allo!; You Rang, M’Lord? and Oh, Dr Beeching! as producer.

Next, over a three year period, Charles re-edited most of the classic comedy archive for the BBC, and the majority of comedy repeats shown in the last five years passed through his hands, including Dad’s Army; Are You Being Served?; Steptoe and Son; Porridge; The Good Life and many others.

Having left the BBC, Charles is now freelance, and concentrating on various writing projects, including a new stage musical; a two act stage play; a two part television drama; a film short (as director); several game show pilots in pre-production; a novel which is awaiting a publisher’s interest; a book of ‘whimsical verse’ entitled ‘My Labrador Eats Poo’ (not as disgusting as it sounds) and an accompanying two-hander stage show, touring from early Summer 2017, the two characters on stage being Charles, and his Labrador Alfie.