In 1999, Charles presented the hugely successful cult-TV show Robot Wars, and a year later was presenting Jailbreak for Channel Five.
He was married to actress Cathy Tyson from 1984 until 1989 and they had 1 child. He married his 2nd wife, Jackie, in 1999 and they have 2 children.
Further TV work has seen him in Doctors (2003) in which he played DCI Merson, and in Coronation Street which has taken up a considerable amount of his time since he joined the 'soap' in 2005. His character is Lloyd Mullaney, who bought into the taxi firm Streetcars. In June 2006, after 62 episodes, Craig Charles was suspended from the production over allegations of drug abuse. However he resumed working again on Coronation Street in 2007.
In 1997, Craig Charles achieved success as a writer. He had already written many poems, but Penguin's first publication of them appeared called No Other Blue. Penguin also published another book of his, The Log - A Dwarfer's Guide to Everything.
The one-man show Craig Charles - Live On Earth played in London's West-End in 1995, and over the next two years had 3 sell-out national tours. In Lynda La Plante's TV series The Governor (1996) Charles played prison inmate Eugene Buffy, to wide acclaim.
With his name and face now well known, Craig Charles hosted a consumer show for the BBC called Them and Us (1991) which, in turn, led to him presenting The Big Breakfast, and guest-presenting Wogan.
His first film appearance was in Business As Usual (1987), but a year later came the TV series Red Dwarf which was to bring Craig Charles international fame and success. His character was a Liverpudlian layabout and slob called Dave Lister. There is an excellent Wikipedia link below, with lots of details about this cult TV series which ran to 52 episodes. By Series VII, audiences of 8 million people tuned in to watch each episode.
Craig Charles was born in Liverpool in July 1964. At the age of 12, he won a poetry competition, and poetry performance has played a big part in his career ever since. When only 16 he was the 'resident poet' on BBCs Pebble Mill, even performing his verse in front of Princess Anne on one occasion! Before turning to entertainment full time, Charles had a spell as a professional footballer with Tranmere Rovers.
I met Craig Charles at the Birmingham NEC in November 2004. He was at the Memorabilia show, and he was sitting next to Robert Llewellyn, who played Kryten in Red Dwarf. Craig signed my photo of him as Dave Lister, and then I had my photo taken with both of them.
character 'Dave Lister' from Red Dwarf
BBC 6 Music
The Craig Charles Funk Show on
Craig Charles as Lloyd Mullaney
Craig Charles as Dave Lister
in Red Dwarf
in Coronation Street
Craig Charles signed this photograph for me of his
Craig Charles' poems
No Other Blue
Since 2003, Craig Charles has also been a regular presenter on The Craig Charles Funk Show on BBC 6 Music, one of the BBC's new digital radio stations, and the first national radio station launched by the BBC since 1970.
I met Craig again in November 2007 at Memorabilia held in Birmingham.
I have altered the background of this image in Photoshop to something
more appropriate to Red Dwarf!
Craig Charles
Click on a name below to take you to that page