It’s been nearly six years since Craig Charles left Coronation Street, after playing the role of Lloyd Mullaney since 2005.
He announced in May of 2015 that his time as the cheating taxi driver was coming to an end, and that he would be leaving the soap later that year to return to Red Dwarf, the show that made his name.
His final scenes on the show included driving a red cadillac during the live episode on September 23, but his final pre-recorded scenes were shown in the next episode.
When he left, he told the Daily Record: “I will miss all the people, the cast and the crew. I will miss my mates, Steve McDonald – Simon Gregson, I will miss him terribly. We are best mates in real life.”
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“He lives round the corner from me and he is always in my kitchen. He comes into my house, picks up my newspaper and goes to the toilet, and comes back 15 minutes and says ‘sorry about that’.
“I will miss it, it has been a big part of my life, it’s the nation’s premier show, an institution. It has been great to be part of it for ten years.”
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Red Dwarf was the show that made Craig famous as Lister, despite never having acting experience before that.
He reunited with Chris Barrie, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn for the iconic show.
New series aired on TV channel Dave, and co-creator Doug Naylor wrote and directed the series.
Naylor said he had been trying to make the series happen since 2012. He said at the time: “Frustratingly it’s taken until now to get our ducks in a row and all the boys available at the same time. Now they are, we’re all absolutely delighted.”
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The show then came back again for a one-off special in 2020, called Red Dwarf: The Promised Land.
The cult classic received rave reviews from fans.
As well as acting, Craig is a huge music fan and can regularly be found DJing.
However it’s not as much fun as it seems, he said in an interview with Daily Mirror.
He explained: “The thing about it is, I don’t really go into the audience. I arrive with my team, do the gig, get in the car and go home.
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“It is not as glamorous as people would have you believe, television, radio, or international DJ. It is a lot of travel, short bursts of activity and go back to sleep.”
“I love funk and soul, I love poetry, I love acting. I love them all. I am dead lucky to work in an industry that allows you to do these things as long as you are not s**t.”
Craig has been presenting show on BBC 6 Music since 2002, The Craig Charles Funk And Soul Show. He can also be heard on BBC Radio 2, every Saturday night for The Craig Charles House Party, and also fills in for other presenters at times.
He even turned his hand to poetry too, after leaving Corrie.
Craig performed a poem of his, called ‘Scary Fairy’ with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and it was quite the experience for him.
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At the time, he said he planned to write more poetry, and continue performing.
Craig previously opened up battling an addiction to drugs, telling John Bishop: “I was dead lucky that I had a wife, Jackie, who I adore and adores me, I had kids who know what I’m really like, and I had a reason to get better.”
He also thanked Corrie bosses for standing by him after he went to rehab for drug addiction: “I had a job that I loved and I had enough people who knew what I was like to say, ‘Let’s care, let’s care for him, let’s care about him, let’s get him well, rather than let’s sack him’.”
Craig said that losing his mum was what triggered his addiction, saying: “When my mum died (when Charles was 24) I got into drugs. When my dad died, I did again.
“It was just a case of… I was like stuck in this little flat in Manchester missing my family, working like 14 hours a day, then travelling vast amounts of motorways all the time. It was just a way of coping.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
