Plenty of fun and standing ovations with 101 Dalmatians

Charles is promising huge fun for everyone who comes along: “The show is just bonkers, and the audience response has been absolutely fantastic. We are getting a full standing ovation every time and people are crying… crying for good reasons, not bad! It's a completely new version which has been written by Douglas Hodge (music and lyrics plus Johnny McKnight (book), from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris), and it is great. We had a two-month rehearsal period which is quite long and it was just completely redone from scratch. I think the best way to describe it is as a book musical version with panto elements because of the silliness and the slapstick and because of the comedy level as well. And there is a real twist in the storytelling. They've gone back to the original book version and they have updated certain elements of the whole thing, but it has still got the big baddie.”

When fashionista Cruella de Vil plots to swipe all the Dalmatian puppies in town to create her fabulous new fur coat, there’s trouble ahead for Pongo and Perdi and their litter of adorable, tail-wagging young pups.

Charles is playing one of her two villainous but rather stupid henchmen: “He is a couple of tools short of the full toolbox. He wants to impress Cruella but he’s a bit fed up with the way she is so dismissive of him. He does her evil bidding but he is really wanting her approval. He is not all bad!”

Charles was born and raised in Southampton: “I used to do all the local dance festivals and drama festivals in the Southampton area and I did a production of Oliver! when I was very young at the Mayflower. That was 92 or 93.”

And he was picked up for Cameron Mackintosh's production of Oliver! in the West End in 1994 in which Jonathan Pryce played Fagin. Charles has got plenty of reasons to feel grateful to the Mayflower.

“When I got into drama school at 18 I was writing around to try to get funding and I got money from the Mayflower. They gave me a bursary to help me with the living costs and do my training. And I have been really lucky as an actor ever since. I have been in pretty much constant work since then. Even during the lockdown I was quite busy.”

And among his more recent successes has been to play the Simon Cowell role in Malta's equivalent of The X Factor, a show called Brillianti.

Charles now lives in Brighton: “I am up by Queen’s Park where I walk my dog every day. In 2019 my husband and I decided to move out of London and go somewhere that was commutable for work and we just love the area. We really love being in Brighton. My partner is a big film actor but the celebrity is our dog who has a spine condition so goes around in a kind of wheelchair so everyone recognises him!”