THE NAME'S HIGSON - Charlie Higson - licensed to write 007 books. There's probably no variation of this Higson hasn't heard by now, but that's the price you pay when you graduate from co-creating one of British television's best-loved comedy series - The Fast Show - to writing for one of the best-known franchises of all: Ian Fleming's James Bond.
A couple of years ago, 48-year-old Higson was contacted by the Fleming estate and asked if he'd be interested in writing a series of books about the spy's formative years at Eton.
'Ian Fleming Publications wanted to revive Bond's literary side,' Higson says, sipping coffee and slouching on a sofa in a London cafe. 'Eon [Albert Broccoli's production company] owns the film side, which clearly tends to dominate. So the Flemings looked for proper writers to write some new Bond books. With the success of Harry Potter, but also [Anthony Horowitz's] Alex Rider books, they thought, 'We should be doing this, really'.'
The result was Young Bond, a series with two best-sellers (Silverfin and Blood Fever). Higson looks set to score a hat-trick with the latest instalment, Double or Die, a title voted for by Young Bond fans. A fast-paced tale of codes, double-bluffs and kidnapping, the story involves crosswords, early computers, car chases and guns - lots of guns. And, teenagers beware, there's even a girl for Bond to blush about.
Higson admits he was a surprise choice. Whereas Fleming personified English elitism (born in Mayfair, and educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he married into the aristocracy and served as a commander in naval intelligence), the laid-back, dry-witted Higson began as a rock musician in the Higsons, who enjoyed brief chart success in the 1980s.
'I knew the one thing I didn't want to do was be in a pop group,' Higson says. 'It was great fun when I was relatively young, but I didn't want to do it for a career.'
At a loss about what career he did want, Higson ended up working as a plasterer. In one of the more unlikely twists in British comedy history, it was how he met Paul Whitehouse, with whom he created The Fast Show, and Harry Enfield, who offered the pair their first show-business break.
