About Richard

I'm a freelance writer and director, and I'm one of the reading team for the writersroom.

After doing an English degree I trained as a director at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and moved to London when a show I'd co-written and directed there transferred, disastrously, to a now-defunct pub theatre in Chelsea. As I worked at various places on the Fringe in London and Edinburgh, I found that what I enjoyed doing most was comedy, and much of the stuff I've done as a writer and director has been funny, or was intended to be so.

In 2000 the BBC launched the Talent scheme, and I was asked to join the 30-strong team of readers by a development producer who'd seen my sketch group in Edinburgh. The competition received many more scripts than expected, and I ended up reading over 300 sitcoms in the space of about a month; a sort of baptism by fire.

When the writersroom started reading scripts for the comedy department a couple of years later, I think they reckoned that anyone who'd managed to read that many sitcoms without chewing off his own feet was probably the person to get, and I've been working in a freelance capacity for them ever since.

When I'm not reading submissions I'm working on my own stuff – I really must get round to looking at that unfinished novel – and running workshops in writing, acting and directing. And when I'm not doing that, I'm playing internet poker.