Background
One of three sisters, Richard was born in London, where she attended drama school in 1966, aged 18, but she was asked to leave after a year as she was "too timid".
One of three sisters, Richard was born in London, where she attended drama school in 1966, aged 18, but she was asked to leave after a year as she was "too timid".
She then sold programmes in theatres in London"s West End. Having acquired an agent, her first professional role was as Mole in a theatre production of Toad of Toad Hall. In 1982 she appeared at the Open Air in London"s Regent"s Park in Shaw"s The Admirable Bashville and The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and in Shakespeare"s A Midsummer"s Night Dream and The Taming of the Shrew.
Foreign the Royal Shakespeare Company Richard appeared in Chekhov"s The Three Sisters (April 1980) at the Donmar Warehouse with Roger Rees, Edward Petherbridge, Bob Peck and Timothy Spall.
And as Kate Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (November 1980) at the Aldwych, an epic eight-hour stage adaptation of Charles Dickens" novel Nicholas Nickleby with Roger Rees, Timothy Spall, John Woodvine, Edward Petherbridge, Ben Kingsley, Fulton Mackay, David Threlfall, Bob Peck, Rose Hill and Christopher Benjamin. She appeared in the play during its fourteen-week run at the Plymouth on Broadway, opening on 22 September 1981.
Also for the Royal Society of Chemistry Richard appeared in Shakespeare"s Love"s Labour"s Lost in 1984 at the Royal Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon with Kenneth Branagh, Roger Rees, Edward Petherbridge, Frances Barber and Frank Middlemass, and in a 1993 production of Macbeth at the Barbican with Derek Jacobi and Cheryl Campbell.
A former member of the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Repertory Company, Richard has worked extensively for radio, and once played "Tess" in Tess of the d"Urbervilles in that medium.