Award winning film director Charles Harris has published his third novel – Play Me! Earlier this month, I went to his Hampstead home to meet the author who describes his latest fiction as comedy crime.
The young Charles Harris left Cambridge University without a degree and the London Film School without a diploma. With the former, he had found that to study parent-pleasing law was not for him, nor the English course he transferred to.
The London Film School, which was recommended to him by Mike Leigh, was more to his liking, especially being so international. Partly inspired by Sergei Eisenstein’s book The Film Sense, Harris was determined to graduate but in early 1974, PM Edward Heath introduced the three-day week limiting energy consumption because of the miners strikes, and the London Film School went bust.
Undeterred, the young Charles Harris eventually got a job as an assistant film editor and then he worked as a film editor before becoming a film director and the director of several fringe plays. Over his working life he has, in his words, “made every kind of documentary and drama genre” for all the UK terrestrial channels – and directed soap operas too.
In 2003 Harris’s cinematic film Paradise Grove earned him several awards. It had taken a not so uncommon ten years to make the film and afterwards Charles realised he might have more satisfaction writing novels. Still a lengthy process, but when the creative muse calls, a dedicated artist answers.
Charles Harris the author
Before getting into fiction writing, Harris wrote Complete Screenwriting Course and a book about how to pitch entitled Jaws In Space. Both books continue to be very popular and are recommended reading on MA screenwriting courses.
Charles Harris’s first novel Breaking of Liam Glass is an award-shortlisted satire about tabloid sleaze and corruption, and his second novel the psychological mystery thriller Room 15 became an Amazon genre bestseller. Play Me! which was published in October 2025 and came out in paperback this past February was a finalist for the Page Turner and Eyelands International Literary Awards 2025.
Sex, Drugs & Dinner
Back in the early 1990s when more people were aware of the Ethiopian famine (thanks largely to the Band Aid musicians and singers), Charles Harris had a penny dropping moment when he heard that a British supermarket which was selling lentils from Ethiopia and mangoes from Sudan. Inspired by Colin Tudge’s book The Famine Business and after further research, Harris became preoccupied with how poorer countries were often massively in debt and yet banks and hedge funds were lending them money they couldn’t repay.
It was the time of the Rio Summit when Harris pitched an Agribusiness documentary to BBC2. Alan Yentob memorably told Harris that he didn’t want a documentary which was “worthy but dull.” The resulting satirical documentary – Sex, Drugs and Dinner – was anything but dull for Harris to make, as he and his film crew spent weeks experiencing life in a mountainous coffee and chocolate farming area in The Dominican Republic. And, icing on the peak, the film was presented by Alexei Sayle.
Charles Harris on location in The Dominican Republic
Review of Play Me!
Harris feels like he has waited a long time to write this novel; which perhaps explains how the plot is so tight and the characters credible. The story is about AxMan, a hapless British rockstar, who goes with his PA Micky to the Caribbean to front a charity concert which is actually a scam devised by a couple of gangsters in cahoots with the island’s president. AxMan goes into the heart of banana republic corruption and guerrilla fighting and on his misadventure this anti-hero becomes a wanted man who ends up living his lyrics, urged on by rebels, over-eager fans and self-discovery.
Despite unexpected twists and scary predicaments, non-stop refreshing wit and satire keep the punchy plot light. Never does Harris go too deep or too far with political or moral messaging so that Play Me! is primarily a thrill, whatever your thoughts about richer countries lending money to poorer neighbours or how marginalised people choose to survive.
The novel is written for anyone, and the unpretentious modern style might be perfect for younger adults looking to re-engage with reading. It as if Harris has made an unspoken promise to his readers; that he’ll do all the heavy lifting by continuously entertaining and making sure that the story rocks on, right until its very decent end.
Play Me! is available for order from all good shops and on Amazon.
