Charles Murray Higson is an English actor, comedian, author, and former singer. He has also written and produced for television and is the author of the Enemy book series.
Early life and education
Born in Frome, Somerset, Higson was educated at Sevenoaks School, Kent and at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. At UEA he met Paul Whitehouse, David Cummings and Terry Edwards. Higson, Cummings and Edwards formed the band The Higsons, of which Higson was the lead singer from 1980 to 1986. They released two singles on the Specials' 2 Tone Records label. This was after he had formed the punk band The Right Hand Lovers, wherein he performed as "Switch". Higson then started squatting in London and became a decorator, including decorating the house of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, before he started writing for Harry Enfield with Paul Whitehouse and performing comedy. He came to public attention as one of the main writers and performers of the BBC Two sketch show The Fast Show. He worked with Whitehouse on the radio comedy Down the Line and is to work with him again on a television project, designed to be a spoof of celebrity travel programmes.
Career
In 1994 Higson co-wrote the screenplay for the film thriller Suite 16. He worked as producer, writer, director and occasional guest star on Randall & Hopkirk from 2000 to 2001. Subsequent television work has included writing and starring in BBC Three's Fast Show spin-off sitcom Swiss Toni. He has starred in Tittybangbang on BBC Three and appeared as a panellist on QI. In 2010 he co-directed and starred in the series Bellamy's People. In 2017, Higson appeared as Ian Winterman in series three of Broadchurch, and as Ronnie Maguire in series three of Grantchester. Higson published many novels through the early to mid-1990s which take a slightly dystopian look at everyday life and have a considerably more adult tone than his other work, with characters on the margins of society finding themselves spiralling out of control. This has led Time Out to describe him as "The missing link between Dick Emery and Bret Easton Ellis". In 2004, it was announced that Higson would pen the Young Bond series of James Bond novels, aimed at younger readers and concentrating on the character's school-days at Eton. Higson was himself educated at Sevenoaks School, where he was a contemporary of Jonathan Evans, former Director General of MI5. The first novel, SilverFin, was released on 3 March 2005 in the UK and on 27 April2005 in the US. A second novel, Blood Fever, was released on 5 January 2006 in the UK and 1 June in the US. The third novel, Double or Die, was published on 4 January 2007 having had its title announced the day before. The next, Hurricane Gold, came out in hardcover in the UK in September 2007. In this year he also made a debut performance on the panel show QI. His final Young Bond novel, By Royal Command, was released in hardcover in the UK on 4 September 2008. Higson is currently writing a post-apocalyptic, zombie-horror series of books for young adults. The eponymous first book in the series, titled The Enemy, was released in the UK by Puffin Books in 2009 and in the US by Disney-Hyperion in 2010. Book 2, The Dead, was released in the UK in September 2010. Book 3, The Fear, was published on 15 September 2011. Book 4, The Sacrifice, was released 20 September 2012. Book 5, The Fallen, was released 12 September 2013. At a school event at Abingdon School on 14 September 2011, Charlie told children: "Originally it was going to be three books and then my publisher, Puffin, said make it five, and now we're up to it being seven." At another, in John Lyon's School, he revealed that the last book in his series would be called The End. The Hunted was published on 1 January 2014 and The End was published in October 2015. In 2011, Higson appeared with the original cast in an online-only version of The Fast Show sponsored by Foster's Lager. In 2013 Higson adapted Agatha Christie's A Caribbean Mystery for ITV's Agatha Christie's Marple series. In an addition to the plot, Miss Marple attends a talk given by the ornithologist James Bond : there she meets Ian Fleming, who is inspired to borrow the speaker's name for the protagonist of his new novel, Casino Royale. In 2015 Higson adapted the novelStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson for ITV Studios into a ten part adventure series set in the 1930s titled Jekyll and Hyde. In 2018 Higson wrote a Fighting Fantasy gamebook entitled The Gates of Death, which was published by Scholastic books as part of their campaign to relaunch the Fighting Fantasy franchise. He is a long term FF enthusiast, having attended Fighting Fantasy Fest 2 in London the previous year and also made a cameo appearance in the Ian Livingstone gamebook Blood of the Zombies. 2020 saw Higson compete on Richard Osman's House of Games, televised on BBC Two, alongside Chizzy Akudolu, Kate Williams, and Tom Allen. Higson has also starred in Lobby Land, a radio sitcom on BBC Radio 4, as Tom Shriver MP.
Personal life
Higson lives in London with his wife and three sons. On his website Higson describes himself as "lazy enough to steal his own bio from Wikipedia!"
