Howard charles parents

Craig Charles was born in Liverpool. A comedian, television presenter and actor, known for playing Lloyd the cabbie in Coronation Street and Dave Lister in BBC’s cult TV series Red Dwarf.

Early Days:

Before turning to entertainment, Craig Charles played football (most notably for Tranmere Rovers). He started his career as a performance poet on the British cabaret circuit. Here he appeared on the late-night comedy programme, Saturday Live, and later as a presenter of children’s television programmes.  Craig also appeared weekly as a John Cooper Clarke-style ‘punk poet’ on the BBC pop music television programme The Oxford Road Show. He called himself Susan Williams on the programme. He also presented the virtual reality gameshow CyberZone which was shown in 1993 in the UK.

Craig Charles finally acquired cult status as the Liverpudlian slob, Dave Lister, in the series Red Dwarf. Red Dwarf also starred Chris Barrie as Rimmer and Robert Llewellyn as the zany robot Kryten. From 1998 until, well it never really stopped and 35 years on, there’s talk of new episodes in 2023.  Between 1998 and 2004 Craig presented the TV game show Robot Wars, on BBC Two and Ch5. He took over the position from Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson.

Radio DJ:

Craig has been a DJ on the radio station BBC 6 Music since 2002.  He continues to host The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show and it is now the longest running show on Radio 6 Music.

In 2017 Craig Charles joined the team on The Gadget Show. Here he was co-hosting with Otis Deley, Georgie Barrat and also Jon Bentley. He remained with the show till 2022.

Craig was also the voice-over man for the Japanese hit TV-show Takeshi’s Castle, shown on Challenge. In 2005 he participated in Channel 4 reality sports show The Games, coming 4th overall in the men’s competition, despite missing 2 events due to injury.