Voiceover

Standup

Writer

Actor

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Richard improvises comedy in the Comedy Store Players every Sunday. He does not do the music. He also performs standup comedy at venues including the Camden Head, Hoopla, ALSO festival, the Troy Club, The Distraction Club and Factually Inaccurate. He toured with Scilly Laughs in 2017 and appeared with One Track Minds. He guests with the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society https://noblefailure.org and has co-hosted the show with Thom Tuck. 10 years ago Richard performed standup in French at the Comedy Cafe. In 2022 he played a mysterious character embedded on the legendary Orient Express for Private Drama Events.

Richard is one of Paul Merton's Impro Chums, completing a 50 date UK theatre tour in 2022 and will be at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe. He is also performing in Stephen Frost's Impro Allstars in the Astrolabe Theatre at the 2023 Glastonbury Festival. He is a guest improviser at Criminal Improv, Guest Speaker and This Is Your Trial. He appeared in "Whose Line Is It Anyway? at the Edinburgh Fringe" as a comedian alongside Greg Proops, Mike McShane and Clive Anderson. He is remembered for improvising the music on the original UK Whose Line? TV series, but he hasn't done music work for many years.

Richard was the narrator of the 2021 Channel 5 series "Alex Polizzi - My Hotel Nightmare." For voice work please call Sue Terry on 0207 434 2040. He recently voiced a messy baby for Lidl and a South Korean health minister for Panorama.

Richard contributed to the spring 2023 Radio 4 topical topical comedy series The Skewer. For comedy, acting and writing contact Richard Bucknall on 0207 976 6021 or info@rbmactors.com Twitter: @richardvranch

Richard presented Channel 4 TV's prime-time science show "Beat The Einstein" making use of his Physics PhD. He has an Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number number of 9. Richard has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Just a Minute" with Nicholas Parsons and Peter Jones, and improvised stories with Sylvester McCoy in Jackanory on BBC1. He's travelled the world from Mexico to to Palestine acting in sketch shows and has performed runs of shows at nearly every Edinburgh Fringe since 1979. Richard formed a double-act with Tony Slattery in 1981 and was the male member of the Millies feminist cabaret group from 1985 to 1987. Lots more stage, TV and radio credits below.

Richard played the role of Gilmanuk in "Theatre of War," a Dr Who audio drama starring Sylvester McCoy (Big Finish Productions.) He appeared as Julian in the sitcom 'The Littlest Boho' (Nerd Productions) which featured in the 2016 Raindance programme. Richard has guested on BBC Radio 4's Infinite Monkey Cage with Prof Brian Cox and Robin Ince (pictured below) and in the General Relativity centenary specials. With Pippa the Ripper he was half of the science hula-hoop act "Dr Hula." Other TV credits include "Weakest Link Doctor's Special" (BBC1) and "Hello Mum" (live BBC2 sitcom, as Bernie Bermuda.)

Richard's voice can be heard on radio and TV ads, and he voices documentaries - Channel 4's 'Love Thy Neighbour' and the first series of 'The Hotel Inspector.' He has appeared on Radio 4's 'Loose Ends' 'The Puzzle Panel' 'Wordly Wise', and the BBC4 TV lateral thinking quiz 'Mindgames.' He's had cartoons published in Punch and Maxim, and made animations for Smack The Pony.

Theatre work includes co-writing and performing in the Paul Merton show (a 3-man variety show with Lee Simpson and Paul, on tour then a two-week season at the London Palladium in 1994), and playing the Grand Vizier in the 1986 Latchmere Theatre panto. Richard has acted on the London theatre fringe, playing the father in the sinister family Christmas comedy 'The Dead Set.' He wrote and performed in the children's show 'Jewels in Jeopardy' at the V&A Museum of Childhood in 1991.

In 2004 he played an evil father and a cheery but impotent lighthouse-keeper in John Dowie and Neil Innes's play 'DOGMAN' alongside Miranda Hart, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Tom Price, in Edinburgh and at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. Richard was co-founder with Leisa Rea of The YarnBards, storytellers spinning audience suggestions into dramatised adventures. YarnBards were acclaimed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005 and 2007. Richard and Leisa have also performed as the "Ukulele Lesbians."

In 2012 he acted in the scripted show "Paul Merton: Out Of My Head" which toured the UK then ran at the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End, and he's toured the world extensively in the Stephen Frost Impro Allstars, pictured below in New York.

Richard was an Artistic Associate of Tamasha Theatre having co-written their 2002 play 'Ryman and the Sheikh' which toured to the Pleasance, Manchester Contact Theatre and the Soho Theatre, London.

Richard was a regular writer/performer on BBC Radio 2's comedy/music series "Jammin'" winning the Silver Sony Radio Academy Award for Comedy in 2004.

Richard Vranch House was the name of the flats in the first TV episode of Little Britain.

Richard is a big fan of Lemon Jelly and VW Type 2 camper vans. He's is the only professional comedian with a Physics Ph.D. (Cavendish Lab, Cambridge) and he was briefly a fellow of St John's College, Oxford. "Dr Hula" (Richard and Hula-Hooper Pippa the Ripper) combines geeky comedy and sexy hula-hooping to explain atomic physics. They performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre's Richard Feynman celebration in May 2013, and with Robin Ince and Prof Brian Cox at their Xmas show at the Hammersmith Apollo. Richard was part of the BIG SCIENCE night at the Royal Institution in June 2013.

Richard had the pleasure of acting with Stephen Frost at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe in a 2-handed short play by Dan Evans and Milton Jones, as well as with the Impro Chums.

He runs impro workshops and hosts sessions for businesspeople who want to communicate better, and he has a suit for hosting conferences. He has appeared in an Italian TV commercial for ice cream. TV documentary narrations also include "The Mentalists" and "Meet The Foxes" in Channel 4's Cutting Edge series.

Richard won the IVCA Gold Award for an animated short film for Boots which he made with Lucy Allen. Together they have made animation sequences for 'Smack the Pony' (Channel 4) and the Body Zone of the Millenium Dome.

He's performed Impro comedy at the Ars Nova Theatre, New York, as well as in Galway, Glastonbury, Glasgow, Fowey, Perth and on board the P&O cruise liner Arcadia. "...showing flashes of inspired wit and performing remarkably nimble three-point turns whenever they found themselves heading down a comedy cul-de-sac." - The Scotsman (Impro Chums) 26/8/2005.

Richard has toured the world acting in sketch shows with the English Teaching Theatre, from Mexico to the Middle East. The picture is from a 1988 tour of Cyprus, Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, playing at the Palestinian El-Hakawati Theatre in East Jerusalem. The Bedouin policeman in the picture saw the show in Amman, Jordan. Richard also appeared in the company's 30th anniversary show in London in October 2003.

His one-man show 'MEXICO' premiered in 1999 and was staged in London and Edinburgh. He's also written bizarre stuff.

TV credits include The Paul Merton Show (BBC 1, co-writing and performing), Smack the Pony (C4, sketches and animation), Let's Pretend (ITV1, presenting), You Bet (ITV1, betting on JCB challenges), Hello Mum (BBC2, as Bernie Bermuda), The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (sketches with Eleanor Bron and Willie Rushton), Cue The Music (over 100 episodes presented/busked with Tony Slattery on ITV1.)

Richard and Jim Sweeney's script 'Lucy and the Vamp' was nominated for the 2000 BBC2 Greenlight Award. It was a part-animated tale of everyday vampirism in London...

With Tony Slattery he presented the Channel 4 TV quiz series 'The Music Game'. In this picture the guests are Nicholas Parsons, Betty Boo and Neil Innes.

Radio work includes appearing on Cross Questioned and writing topical lines for Weekending. He co-wrote and performed the 1989 BBC Radio 2 sketch show 'The Hot Club' with Arthur Smith, Josie Lawrence and Ronnie Golden, and hosted a BBC Open University radio programme about how comedy works abroad.

He has acted in impro shows at the Royal Court Theatre and Ambassador's Theatre with Eddie Izzard. The Comedy Store Players continue their annual trips to Shakespeare's Globe and Regent's Park, and have played the Olivier Theatre. He has appeared in the Impro Musical (Donmar Warehouse), Live Soap at the Donmar, The Impro Panto (BAC), The Cannery (San Francisco) with Greg Proops, Keith Johnston's 'Micetro' (Hackney Empire), Improbable Theatre's 'Lifegame' both as a company member and the protagonist (West Yorkshire Playhouse), 'Animo' (Brighton) and 'Improbable Tales' (Nottingham Playhouse.) He improvised at the 1998 Montreal Juste Pour Rire comedy festival and in scores of impro tours of the Middle East, Far East and Ireland in Stephen Frost's Impro Allstars.

At Cambridge University he used to teach things like special relativity, quantum mechanics, electrostatics and the Uncertainty Principle to the first year undergraduates. He's had research papers (on radiation defects in silicon lattice structures) published in semiconductor physics research journals.

Richard first performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1979 with the Cambridge Mummers, who held a 50th anniversary dinner that September attended by Richard, Joanna Wade, Alistair Cooke and Stephen Fry (Cooke was a founder member in 1929 and presented Letter From America for decades.)

In 1981 Richard began writing and performing a double-act with Tony Slattery. They played on the London comedy circuit, and successfully topped the bill at Malcolm Hardy's notorious Tunnel Palladium club. Richard and Tony had an impromptu seance with Ki and Viv Stanshall after playing on their theatre boat the 'Thekla' in Bristol docks on Halloween night, 1984. This photograph was taken by Donna McPhail for their 1984 Edinburgh show 'Aftertaste', bits of which are available on various obscure vidoes.

Other Edinburgh shows include The Millies' sold-out runs at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms in 1985 and 1986, Terror in Toytown, Jenny LeCoat and the Diamantes, and various Steve Frost Impro Allstars and Comedy Store Players runs.

Richard was a founder member (with Andy Smart, Ronnie Golden, Arthur Smith and Tony Hawks) of the risque dance troupe 'Hunx'.