Charles Garland

Charles Garland is a writer and composer, television and film 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, 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, game shows, 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, including Dad's Army, Steptoe and Son, Are You Being Served?, Porridge, The Good Life, and many others.

Charles is now freelance, and concentrating on various projects, including a new stage musical, two feature length screen plays, a 75 minute stage play, a two part television drama, a recently completed film short How Can I Be Sure? (as director), several game show pilots in pre-production, a novel, and a recently published book of 'whimsical verse' My Labrador Eats Poo (not quite as disgusting as it sounds).