Gavin Richards - Acting Career

Acting Career

Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Richards has worked as an actor, director and writer in theatre, television and film for over forty years. He is most familiar for his portrayal of Terry Raymond in the BBC TV series EastEnders, appearing in over 300 episodes. He is also remembered as Captain Alberto Bertorelli in the TV comedy hit 'Allo 'Allo! in which he appears in over thirty episodes. His television credits also include roles in Coronation Street, Hi-de-Hi! (where he had a minor role in series 4/5 and 7 in the BBC series, as general manager Harold Fox, aka The Smiling Viper), The Bill, Lovejoy, Minder, Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost, Between the Lines and Pie In The Sky. He co starred with Robert Powell in Hannay, with Leigh Lawson in Kinsey, Michael Kitchen in The Reporters and with Rowan Atkinson in Full Throttle. He also starred in the series Annie's Bare, Driving Ambition, Hardwicke House, Mike & Angelo and many other programmes. He has appeared in films, amongst others, with Robin Williams in Being Human, with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson in Michael Apted's Triple Echo, and in the New Zealand film Savage Play.

As a director and actor in the theatre, Richards is famous for translating the work of Dario Fo into the English language in his own West End hit production of Accidental Death Of An Anarchist (Wyndham's Theatre, 1980) for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award. He also directed and starred in the production for Channel 4 TV in the UK. Gavin played Face in Griff Rhys Jones’s production of The Alchemist at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith and toured in the lead role in Jack Shepard’s Comic Cuts. He worked as a guest artist on the BBC/SPP TV co production of Kidnapped, and the TVNZ production of The Lost Children, both shot entirely in New Zealand. Gavin has performed at the London Palladium in the stage production of 'Allo 'Allo, which also toured New Zealand and Australia.

Richards’ theatre career in began with five years working as a leading actor in repertory in Leicester, Manchester, Bolton, Liverpool and Bristol. He directed Shane Connaughton's first play, Jenny at the Roundhouse, London, in 1969. In the 1970s he performed throughout Europe and Scandinavia with Ken Campbell’s Roadshow, before becoming a founder member of the 7:84 Theatre Company and Artistic Director of the Belt & Braces Theatre Company, touring Britain for over twelve years in political rock musicals. Belt & Braces also produced Brecht's Mother Courage. As well as his own work, Richards' collaborations with writers John Arden, Margaretta D'Arcy, Adrian Mitchell, Trevor Griffiths and John McGrath were seen regularly at the Edinburgh Festival and transferred to London on several occasions.

In the early 1990s, together with his New Zealand-born wife Tamara Henry, Richards presented Richard Sparks's comedy The Crimson Lizard in New Zealand, with himself, Annie Whittle and Lloyd Scott, at the Court Theatre, Christchurch and the Fortune Theatre, Dunedin. The production was then remounted in the UK at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.

Richards and Henry then went on to form their own theatre company, Theatre South, which toured a New Zealand version of The Drawer Boy, by Michael Healey, to audiences at the Fortune Theatre in Dunedin, the Court Theatre in Christchurch, Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North and at Downstage in Wellington. The production also played in Blenheim, Invercargill, Whangarei, Tauranga and Hamilton. Theatre South is the only professional theatre company in Malrborough, where he once resided. Past productions include a schools’ workshop production, The Hole In The Sky, and Tittle Tattle 1 & 2 by 'Emmerdale' TV script writer Lesley Clare O’Neill (December 2005 and October ‘06).

Theatre South also produced War Child, written and directed by Richards. Dedicated to War Child Australia, part of the international relief and development agency working for the rehabilitation of child soldiers, the show featured a cast of 9 to 18 year olds from Marlborough, plus a full professional crew, and was received enthusiastically by audiences over its eight day run, winning a local community award.

Richards has also appeared as Patrick in Tony McCaffrey’s (A Different Light Company) production of The Night Season by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, at the University Theatre, Christchurch and as Claudius in both Hamlet and Rosencranz & Guildenstern for the Court Theatre, Christchurch, in April 2006. In 2007 he appeared as Creon in Tolis Papazoglou’s production of Antigone, at Studio 77 in Wellington.

He resides in Blenheim, New Zealand.