Charles began writing plays professionally in 1978 when he joined Leeds Playhouse TIE team. He has now written over forty plays, many of them for young people, and his work has been produced all over the world. These include Sleeping Beauty, The Search for Odysseus and A Spell of Cold Weather - which were all nominated as Best Children's Play by the Writer's Guild of Great Britain. He has recently published his 'Classic fairytales, retold for the stage' which includes Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, which were specially commissioned by The Library Theatre Manchester. His play about the percussionist Evelyn Glennie, which was first produced at the Polka Theatre for Children, was nominated as Best Children's Show by the TMA. Other plays include The Flood, Red Red Shoes, One Snowy Night The Tinderbox and The Night Before Christmas. . He was recently commissioned by the National Theatre to write Alice in the News, which children all over Britain have performed. Charles has won several awards and was last years recipient of the 'Children's award' given by the Arts Council of England for 'Red Red Shoes' as best play for young people 2004. His play 'Merlin and the Cave of Dreams', for Imagination Stage, was nominated for a Helen Hayes award for the 'Outstanding New Play of 2004'.
Charles' plays for adults include a well-known version of Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill and an adaptation of Independent People by Halldor Laxness. In Wales he has had long associations with Gwent Theatre, The Sherman theatre and Hijinx Theatre, for whom he has written' In the Bleak Midwinter, and Ill Met by Moonlight, both set on the welsh borders. Recent new plays include, Still life, about genetic science for The Plymouth Theatre Royal; The Long Way Home, for New Perspectives Theatre in collaboration with the CIAO festival, which has been performed in Croatia and The Dutiful Daughter which has been performed in China. Charles has written many plays for radio, and a TV poem for BBC2, No Borders, set on the Welsh borders, where he lives and has spent most of his creative life.
