“Former assistant to David Croft OBE, Charles talks about Dad’s Army, and many BBC programmes he worked on, with wit and affection. A natural raconteur.” (Eastern Daily Press)

Available talks are from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and not from research... all delivered with an emphasis on entertainment, and laughter.

In his "Dad's Army" talk, Charles tells the 'behind the scenes' stories of how the programme came to exist, with personal memories of the writers and cast members.

In his talk "From Vicar's Son to BBC Producer", Charles describes his amazing varied career (see below) and how a country boy came to work with the biggest stars, from Sir Paul McCartney and Dame Margot Fonteyn, Dave Allen and Bob Monkhouse to 'Take That', Victor Borge and The Bee Gees.

In "Television Comedy from Script to Screen" Charles explains why it takes more than two years to make a programme and why Lucille Ball is so important, deciphers all the strange job titles, like 'key grip' and 'best boy' and assures the audience that we never, ever, used 'canned' laughter.

As a boy, Charles trained in classical ballet, was a chorister at St. Edmundsbury Cathedral in Suffolk, and after drama school, appeared as a dancer in a musical at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, was a pianist and organist in hotels and clubs nation-wide, club cabaret artist in a comedy duo, actor at London’s Old Vic Theatre, British Army bandsman, restaurateur in Belgravia, composer and writer of five stage musicals, and achieved an MA in script writing from the University of East Anglia.

At the BBC, Charles began making the tea on Hi-De-Hi! and finished as producer of Oh, Doctor Beeching! He worked on programmes from Blue Peter to The Royal Variety Performance. He was unofficial ‘stunt double’ for Paul Daniels and stand-in tenor during Sir Jonathan Miller’s BBC2 production of Cosi Fan Tutte.

He has written comedy and music for TV and stage, and recently finished a UK tour with a one man show. Then there’s the book of whimsical verse, a novel, Painted Angel, published in May 2021, now available as an audiobook and e-book for your Kindle from Audible, three books of children’s stories, over 100 songs and 50 poems. Not all of this is included in all of his talks...
Further information at: www.imdb.com/name/nm0307506