Charles Garland’s profile

Charles Garland is a writer and composer, and former 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 and 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 small parts, and composed much of the incidental music.

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 almost 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, game shows, a Merce Cunningham / John Cage dance production, 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 finally Oh, Dr Beeching! as producer.

Next, over a three year period, Charles re-edited most of the classic comedy archive for the BBC, including Dad’s Army, Steptoe and Son, Are You Being Served?, Porridge, The Good Life, and many others.

Charles is now freelance, and following production of a film short How Can I Be Sure? as producer / director, embarked on an eighteen month national tour of a solo show Once Upon a Labrador, featuring Alfie, his quadrupedal best friend. He is now concentrating on various projects, including two feature length screen plays, a two act stage play, a three part television drama and a new studio based TV situation comedy. His first novel, Painted Angel was published in May 2021.

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