The secret of my success: Charlie Higson

CHARLIE HIGSON is best known for his characters Swiss Tony and Ralph from The Fast Show. But he is also an accomplished producer and writer. His novel King of the Ants has recently been re-released by Abacus.

"I went to the University of East Anglia in 1977 where I met Paul Whitehouse, Harry Enfield and Vic Reeves. At that time I was writing novels, but my main concern was pop music. I had a band for six years called, somewhat unimaginatively, The Higsons.

"I moved down to London in the mid-Eighties, and shared a flat with Harry who was launching his career as a stand-up at the time. Paul and I went on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme as comedy script writers, which took off when we did 'Loadsamoney'.

"After that, we did the Harry Enfield television programme for a couple of series and then Paul and I ended up doing The Fast Show, which we produced ourselves.

"I think it's good to do TV comedy late in life. Paul and I weren't coming in as 20- year-olds with no knowledge of the world. Everything I've done has basically been a series of lucky encounters because I've never had a proper career plan. I knew vaguely in the back of my mind that I would like to be a writer at some stage.

"I work very hard and when I'm writing I treat it as a job. I sit there every day and write, which is not difficult because I enjoy it so much. Paul and I work very well together - we both have the talent where the other doesn't.

"A good writing partnership is a rare thing. I attribute a lot of my success to being disciplined, focused, and of course working with Paul, who fortunately is much less anal than me!"