Richard was born at Stratford-upon-Avon... On purpose.
When he received The Complete Works of Shakespeare for his christening from his actor parents, it seemed inevitable he would become an actor. His first role was Young MacDuff at the age of six in his father's repertory company on Guernsey in the Channel Islands.
At the age of 13 he landed the role of East in the West End musical Tom Brown's Schooldays. A year later he was back in the West End playing the biggest lead role written for a boy in a musical: Tom in The Water Babies which also starred musical legend Jessie Matthews.
He then went on to become a very successful child actor appearing in numerous television programmes in films with such actors as Peter Sellers, Richard Burton, Jeremy Brett, Gordon Jackson and Thora Hird. After working with Daniel Day-Lewis in Class Enemy at Bristol Old Vic, at the age of 23, he decided to follow in his mother's footsteps and go to RADA.
Also at RADA at the time were actors of the future -- Sarah Woodward,
Imogen Stubbs, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Bean, Janet McTyre, Kenneth Branagh, Joely Richardson, Alex Kingston and Iain Glen.
On graduating, he went straight into a nationwide tour of Billy Liar with Kevin Wateley playing Billy. He then moved on to be a standby for Anthony Sher and Harvey Feirstein in the London production of Torch Song Trilogy at the Albery Theatre. When Harvey came over to reprise his Broadway role, Richard performed for six weeks playing Arnold Berkoff for his matinees.
His theatre roles include Jean in Miss Julie, Loveborg in Hedda Gabler, Allmers in Little Eyolf for The National Theatre of Norway, Giovanni in Tis Pity She's a Whore,and Felix in The Normal Heart.
In the TV series Maigret he got the chance to perform opposite Michael Gambon playing the serial killer Marcel Moncin in Maigret Sets a Trap.
However, his work has mainly been in theatre classics.
Roles in the UK include Lord Illingworth in Wilde's A Woman of No Importance at Leicester Haymarket, Ragnor in The Master Builder for the Peter Hall Company, with Alan Bates, Gemma Jones and Victoria Hamilton in the West End and Canada, Caliban in Nancy Meckler's production of The Tempest for Shared Experience. In 1998 he fulfilled a lifetime's ambition to play Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music to sell-out houses at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester.
Other roles include Valentin in The Kiss of The Spider Woman directed by Michael Cashman; George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme; directed by Gwenda Hughes. Parris in The Crucible; Brachiano in The White Devil; Guy Burgess in Single Spies opposite Dylis Laye at the Leicester Haymarket, directed by Paul Kerryson. Hamish in Ayckbourn's Things We Do For Love at Salisbury Playhouse directed by Natalie Wilson.
In 2001 he played Don Pedro in Aquila's off Broadway production of Much Ado About Nothing and went on to play Prospero in The Tempest for the Aquila Theatre Company 2002/2003 national tour. In June 2002 he played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing for the Elkins Shakespeare Festival.
In the summer of 2003 he played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest in New York. This was followed with Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse in A Comedy of Errors at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California.
In January 2004 Richard played Iago in Othello for Aquila. In the summer of 2004 he reprised Comedy of Errors in New York and created the stage role of Peachey Carnehan in the first stage adaptation of Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King adapted by Peter Meineck. He then went to Philidelphia to appear at the Wilma Theatre in Tom Stoppard's Night and Day. This was followed by a guest lead in the long-running NBC series Law & Order where he played Derek Winston, a cool English hop-hop record producer! The episode "Ain't No Love" and aired in the States early 2005.
In April 2005 he went to the White House to perform Shakespeare with Aquila for President Bush and Laura Bush.
In the summer of 2005 he was seen as Oberon in A Misdummer Night's Dream for the Summer Theatre of New Canaan, and both Antipholus twins in A Comedy of Errors at the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival.
In 2006 he completed a national tour of the States for the Aquila Theatre Company playing Claudius in Hamlet; and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and the American Victorian actor, Richard Mansfield, in a new play by Louis Butelli based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.
He then returned to the Summer Theater of New Canaan to play Friar Lawrence in Romeo & Juliet, and this was followed by a trip back in the UK to play John in the New Vic production of David Mamet's Oleanna.
A new feature film A Big Bad Swim was shown at the 2006 Tribeca and Seattle Film Festivals in which Richard plays a cynical dog-hating misogynist writer.
In 2007 he was Praed in Mrs Warren's Profession at the Denver Center Theatre Company in Colorado.
In 2007/2008 he played Brutus in Julius Caesar, and a host of characters which included Doc Daneeka, Major Major, the Italian Old Man, in Joseph Heller's Catch 22 on the Aquila Theatre USA nationwide tour.
In the summer of 2008 he played Malvolio in Twelfth Night for the Summer Theatre of New Canaan, Brutus in Julius Caesar at Neuss Shakespeare Festival in the Globe Theatre; and The Iliad in The Festival of the Aegean on the Greek island of Syros.
In the fall he played both Dromios in Aquila's tour of Comedy of Errors.
He then returned to New York in November and played Major Major, Doc Daneeka, Major Sanderson and The Old Man in Aquila's production of Catch-22. It ran at the Lucille Lortelle Theatre on Christopher Street in New York from November 14th - December 20th 2008.
In 2009 Richard played Sheldon Kominski in One Wrong Move, an episode of Flashpoint for CTV and CBS.
Richard currently lives in Canada and divides his time between New York, London & Toronto.