I just plugged my laptop charger into the wall socket (without it being plugged into the laptop) and there was a rather large spark, bang and smoke from the wall socket and the circuit breaker tripped. Now there is a small covering of soot on the wall socker and laptop charger.

I've lived in Thailand for years and have experienced the small sparks that often happen when using sockets, but this was a lot larger then normal

What should be the next course of action here? should the wall socked be inspected for faults?

 

You should do all repairs yourself 

7 minutes ago, Millian said:

What should be the next course of action here?

Call someone who knows what they are doing perhaps?

14 minutes ago, Millian said:

What should be the next course of action here?

 

Buy a new charger  as the one that let the magic blue smoke out  is

most likely dead,Kaput,toast...  probably one of the capacitors went bad...sometimes a repair shop can open and change the bad components  but often there is too much damage for the repair to be economic.

Try another wall socket and see if it is the charger or wall socket fault. 

If it doesn't go bang, you may know that it's the other wall socket that needs fixing. Get an electrician to inspect the wall socket.

If the wall socket is OK it could be that the charger was at fault but the S/C was blown away with the bang/flash and now it is O/C.

I would suspect the charger has gone to meet its maker. Do try it in another outlet to be sure but ...

 

You can try to wipe the soot off the outlet with a DRY tissue/cloth but if it won't come off you really need to replace the outlet.

2 hours ago, Millian said:

(without it being plugged into the laptop)

Good move 

It's always recommended to plug in the charger before connecting to the device.

 

Unlikely but cheapest case: a short-circuit in the plug or cable connecting to the charger.

Or as suggest the wall socket might had a short circuit.

You don't write that there was smoke from the charger?

No bad smell?

You have put the circuit breaker back on and no problem?

 

Plug in some cheap lamp or the like at the wall socket.