Richard Derrington

The Actor

Richard recently completed a UK tour playing Laurie Lee in Cider with Rosie, directed by Paul Milton. Just before that he had completed a year on tour with the world premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s Neighbourhood Watch,his 75^th play, directed by the author which included London and New York. Indeed Ayckbourn and his company have been a major part of Richard’s working life and other work with his company includes Platonov in Wild Honey, Brinton Chalke in It Could Be Any One of Us, Robert in Betrayal, Torvald in Doll’s House, Rockfist Slim in The Boy Who Fell Into a Book and Ken in Haunting Julia… He adapted and directed “Moby Dick” for The Company and directed the world premiere of a new play by Tim Firth Absolutely Frank. In 2008 he shared the directing with Sir Alan of his Things that Go Bump season.

Richard’s early work in theatre included long seasons at Salisbury Playhouse, The Byre St Andrews, Liverpool Playhouse, The Donovan Maule Theatre in Nairobi and The Thordike Theatre in Leatherhead. Subsequently Richard joined the RSC where his work included Henry IV parts 1 & 2, Henry 5th, Henry VI parts 1,2 & 3, The Dance of Death and the title role in the Peter Flannery play Awful Knawful. He has worked with the National Theatre and appeared in Derek Jacobi’s Hamlet for the Old Vic Company. He had originally worked with Alison Sutcliffe at the RSC and when she formed her own company at The Bridgehouse Theatre in Warwick they reunited where he played Prospero, Scrooge and Willie Loman.

TV credits include Eastenders, Heartbeat, Lovejoy, Making Out, Poirot, Jupiter Moon (a science fiction series in which he appeared in 96 episodes!), Casualty, Doctors, The Bill, DreamTeam, Doc Martin and The Queen.

On radio he has appeared in over 100 productions including Ariel in The Tempest, Barnaby in Barnaby Rudge and Commander Adam Dalgleish in the P. D. James novels. For 14 years he played Mark Hebden in The Archers.

His first one-man show Taylor’s Tickler played over 700 times worldwide including the RNT, the RSC Swan, and three tours to the USA. Since then other one man shows which have all toured internationally are Shakespeare’s Other Anne, My Kingdom for a Horse – a sideways look at Richard III, Hovering, An Actor’s Life… and the sequel to Taylor’s Tickler, And Now …Ezekiel Taylor!

He has recorded many audio books and voiced countless commercials and documentaries. He lives with his wife in the Cotswolds and has two sons working in London.