Craig’s rollercoaster life takes new twist with an abbey day

He undoubtedly has a lot to talk about. In the positive column there is his Craig Charles Funk Show on BBC 6 Music, there’s his work on Coronation Street, his portrayal of Dave Lister in the cult comedy Red Dwarf, presenting Robot Wars, Takeshi’s Castle, the punk poetry that started it all and his forthcoming appearance in Yorkshire at the inaugural Night and Day at Kirkstall Abbey Festival in Leeds.

Then there are the more tricky subjects. There’s Charles’s time on remand before he was acquitted of a rape charge, and his suspension from both Coronation Street and his music show in 2006 when a Sunday tabloid exposed him smoking class A drugs in the back of a car.

How to approach those less salubrious parts of the Craig Charles story? Having just finished a morning of filming in Coronation Street and heading to lunch with his wife and visiting brother, he is not keen to expand on what he’s already offered about his life’s ups and downs.

“I talk about that other stuff and you put it in your article and... it’s just something I’ve talked about for a lot of years and I just want to put it behind me and look forward these days. It’s about the future for me these days,” says Charles.

Fair enough. Clearly the actor has made some bad choices, but his attitude is that he has paid his penance for any mistakes in the past and, to be fair to him, he has brought plenty of joy in many different roles in a showbiz career that began back in the mid Eighties.

In high spirits, having clocked off from Corrie for the week, Charles’s familiar rasping laugh accompanies his declaration that, just that morning, he has been filming scenes which will see him move into the cobbled street.

“I’m the first black man to own a house on Coronation Street,” he says.

It is a strange place for Charles to end up, given that the working-class mixed-race kid from Liverpool never had any acting training and started out as a performance poet in the clubs of his native city.

Cast as the last human alive in 1988 in the TV series Red Dwarf, Charles went on to play Dave Lister in a total of eight series of the science fiction comedy series. He becomes perkier when asked about the long-running role.

“We did a special that was broadcast a couple of years ago and it got more viewers than BBC2 and Channel 4 combined. It was amazing to see how much love their still was for the show,” says Charles.

He also reveals that the success of the special episodes, broadcast over a weekend, means that a ninth series will be made this November.

“Corrie have been beautiful about it, they are giving me three months off and all the old gang are getting back together to make it. The specials could have been funnier, but we’ll be filming this new series in front of a live audience so that should make sure it is as funny as the early shows.”

Before all that, however, Charles is coming to Yorkshire, indulging what he calls a, “hobby that I managed to turn into a second career”.

Night and Day at Kirkstall Abbey is a new two day event organised by York producer Ben Pugh’s company Tribeca Events. A “festival without the camping”, it features a host of events at the Leeds abbey over one weekend in June.

Craig Charles is there to presents his Fantasy Funk Band, which will take to the stage on the Sunday evening to close the festival.

“It started a couple of years ago when I ran a competition through my BBC6 music show to find the best soul and funk musicians in the country. It was like X Factor, only cool – my Cool Factor,” says Charles with the rasping laughter.

“The idea was to see if we could get them all together with a producer and may be get a couple of tracks done, but everyone loved it so much that we ended up playing a few festivals.

“We got John Turrell, James Taylor, Eddie Roberts, Snowboy, all these amazing soul and funk musicians and it’s just amazing.”

Although he is not a musician, Charles finds himself on stage, chatting along, generally acting as an MC, with the band. It is yet another chapter in his strange rollercoaster life.

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Night and Day will take place at Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds on June 11 and 12. For more information or tickets call 0844 847 1742.