Chris Langham

One of his earliest breaks was as the sole British Writer for The Muppet Show. He also appeared as the "special guest star" in the nineteenth episode of the final season, when the scheduled guest, Richard Pryor, was unable to make it to the recording; a script was hastily written in which "Chris the Delivery Boy" stood in for an absent Celebrity. He received two awards from the Writers Guild of America for his work on The Muppet Show. He also made a brief appearance as a police driver in The Pink Panther Strikes Again in 1976, opposite Peter Sellers.

Also in 1979, Langham played Arthur Dent in the first professional stage version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, directed by Ken Campbell. He later returned to Hitchhiker's, appearing as Prak in Above The Title Productions' Tertiary Phase radio series in 2004.

Langham narrated the 1984 radio series The History of Rock with Chris Langham, in which Langham gave a comedic and somewhat fictitious account of the history of rock music. On 14 November 1985, Langham appeared as the narrator/reporter in "Roxanne", episode five of the BBC situation comedy Happy Families, written by Ben Elton. In 1992, he appeared in the film Carry On Columbus.

His trial also saw him accused of having sex with an under-age girl in upmarket hotels, his West End dressing room, his car and his home. The victim claimed this had started when she was 14 years old. Langham denied the charges and the jury accepted his account that he only had sex with her when she was 18, clearing him of six counts of indecent assault and two counts of buggery between January 1996 and April 2000.

Langham had paid with his credit card for access to a site entitled "European Lolita Sex" in 1999. On the evening that the public was made aware of the scope of Operation Ore, Langham had contacted police to report his "concern" about spam emails, with links to paedophile sites, which he said he was receiving. The prosecution said that he had contacted police because he had "panicked" and "wanted to give the impression of being a good citizen".

Langham wrote the BBC One sitcom Kiss Me Kate, in which he appeared alongside Caroline Quentin and Amanda Holden. In 2002 he wrote and starred in Bradford in My Dreams, an adaptation of a short story by Lawrence Block for the BBC. On Radio 4 he narrated the series The Rapid Eye Movement, which starred Martin Freeman as Chester Bennington, in whose head the entire series took place. In 2003 he directed the BBC TV comedy series Posh Nosh.

In 2003 and 2005, respectively, he portrayed the authors George Orwell and John Wyndham in the BBC docudrama George Orwell – A Life In Pictures and the BBC Four documentary John Wyndham: the Invisible Man of Science Fiction. He also appeared in the radio magazine satire The Sunday Format.

On 29 November 2005, Langham was arrested by Kent Police in connection with Operation Ore, a British police operation into credit card customers paying to access indecent and abusive images of children on the internet. The arrest was first reported in the press on 16 December 2005, in response to which Langham's Lawyer read a statement in which he said that he was innocent, and pointed out that he had not been charged. On 11 May 2006, he was charged with 15 counts of "making indecent images" (a legal term meaning to download and store indecent images as distinct from the act of photography) of children.

Langham sought counselling for alcohol and cocaine addiction, and was still undergoing therapy once a week as of 2006. He used his experiences to co-write the BBC2 series Help, in which he portrayed a psychotherapist, with friend Paul Whitehouse; and played a counsellor in sitcom Kiss Me Kate.

He was released on 14 November 2007 after his sentence was reduced to six months on appeal. Dame Heather Steel, who gave the decision said that the court viewed Langham's explanation that he viewed the child porn for research as "highly improbable" but could not actually reject it, although he was still guilty of encouraging "despicable acts" through downloading the pornography. On his release, Langham stated, "My life has been ruined but my conscience is clear" and complained that the media "completely ignored" the court's "acceptance based upon all the evidence and expert opinion that I have no sexual interest in children". A counter to his claims was provided by Paul Fotheringham, then the Deputy Superintendent of Kent Police, who told journalists after the trial in 2007, "Langham doesn’t like the label, but I am satisfied that he is a paedophile".

A few days after his release from prison, Langham was interviewed by Celebrity Psychologist Pamela Connolly (née Stephenson), with whom he had worked on Not the Nine O'Clock News, for her UK television series Shrink Rap, where he discussed being abused as an eight-year-old child, the events that led up to his trial and conviction. The interview was broadcast on More4 on 15 January 2008. Langham was also invited to make a speech in front of the Oxford Union on 29 May 2008 but the invitation was then withdrawn.

In 2011, he was cast as the lead in Black Pond, a low-budget British film directed by Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe. In an interview with The Guardian in September 2011, Langham stated that many people had suggested to him that he should work again but no one wanted to employ him. Reviewing his performance in Black Pond positively, The Independent commented, "whether it will rehabilitate him among casting agents and comedy show commissioners is another question". The "Kino Digital" cinema in Hawkhurst had a screening of the film on 11 December 2011. Afterwards, Langham, a resident of the town, held a brief question-and-answer session to help promote the film.

In 2012, he appeared with Billy Murray, Leslie Grantham and Crissy Rock in Richard John Taylor's film drama Acceptance.