Richard Lumsden

Richard Lumsden
Born	Richard James Lumsden (1965-06-24) 24 June 1965 Lancashire, England
Education	Lady Manners School
Alma mater	Guildford School of Acting
Occupation(s)	Actor, writer, composer, musician
Years active	1988–present
Spouse	Sophie Thompson ​ ​ (m. 1995; sep. 2015)​
Children	2
Website	richardlumsden.com

Richard James Lumsden (born 24 June 1965) is an English actor, writer, composer and musician. He has made regular appearances on TV and film throughout his career. Notable series include Channel 4's Emmy-award winning Sugar Rush, Is it Legal, Wonderful You and The Singapore Grip. He played Ray in Radio 4's long-running comedy Clare in the Community.

Career

Television

Lumsden's early television work includes Foggy in two series of First of the Summer Wine, Nutter in The Sharp End, Waterfront Beat, One Foot In The Grave, The Brittas Empire, Nelson's Column, Grace and Favour, Coogan's Run - Death Of A Salesman, and Hornblower.

He played Colin in three series of Simon Nye's Is it Legal?, Henry in Wonderful You, Charles in All About Me, Roger in The House That Jack Built, as well as episodes of Dangerfield, People Like Us, Hardware, Love Soup, The Croydon Poisonings. Nathan in two series of Sugar Rush, and appearances in Party Animals, Suburban Shootout, Dis/connected, U Be Dead, and Free Agents. He appeared as Martin in series three of The Catherine Tate Show, and Arnold, an ex-boyfriend of Clare Bates in EastEnders.

Other tv shows include; Grownups, Summer In Transylvania, Garrow's Law, two series of The Impressions Show, three series of Life Of Riley, Vexed, Midsomer Murders, Rebecca Front's Little Cracker, By Any Means, All At Sea, as well as sixteen appearances as different characters in Holby City, Casualty and Doctors, all for the BBC.

More recent TV work includes Remember Me, Trollied, Father Brown, three series as Tony in BBC's Millie In Between, Crazyhead, Doc Martin, Shakespeare and Hathaway. In 2020, he played General Percival in ITV's WW2 drama The Singapore Grip filmed in Malaysia, and in 2021, Taylor Lawson in series 25 of Silent Witness.

Film

Lumsden played Robert Ferrars in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. He also appeared in The Avengers, Room To Rent, Silent Cry, Gospel of John, City Slacker, Morris A Life With Bells On (for which he also composed the music) and Ben Wheatley's Sightseers.

In 2014, Lumsden starred in the independent British feature film Downhill, directed by James Rouse, a comedy about four friends attempting Alfred Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk. He played Ballested in Jan Vardoen's Heart Of Lightness, shot in Norway's Arctic Circle, and General Ismay in Joe Wright's Darkest Hour (2016).

Most recently Lumsden starred as Paul in Brook Driver & Finn Bruce's debut feature film Swede Caroline, alongside Jo Hartley & Celyn Jones, released on April 19th 2024.

Theatre

Notable theatre work includes: White Teeth (Kiln, 2018), It's All Made Up (Royal Court, 2017), Cartwright (Telegin) in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya for director Robert Icke (also providing the on-stage musical accompaniment, 2016).^, and Mr Webb in David Cromer's internationally celebrated production of Our Town (2014), both at the Almeida in London.

He performed his own one–man musical play We Could Be Heroes at the Bridewell Theatre, 2004, later transferring to the Mill Theatre, Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford and the Arts Theatre, West End. His repertory theatre work at Stoke-on-Trent and Basingstoke includes the title roles in Hamlet and Master Harold & The Boys, and productions of As You Like It, King Lear, A Trip To Scarborough, Amadeus, Juno and the Paycock, Far From The Madding Crowd and Having A Ball. He played Roche in Rat in the Skull at Theater Exchange, Minneapolis USA, and John Thorpe in Northanger Abbey at Greenwich.

Writing

His writing work includes a seven-hour drama Wonderful You for ITV (co-written with Chris Niel), in which he also starred, a one-man musical We Can Be Heroes which he performed in London, and five verse plays for BBC Radio 4: John Dodd Gets Taken for a Ride (shortlisted for the BBC / Society of Authors' Imison award for new writing), A Good Place For Fishing which starred Anne Reid, and Man in the Moon, with Tom Courtenay (shortlisted for the BBC/ Society of Authors' Tinniswood award) and A Book By Lester Tricklebank (with Stephen Tompkinson). Readings of his play Skeletons have taken place at Soho Theatre and Leicester Square Theatre.

His debut novel The Six Loves of Billy Binns, was published by Tinder Press in January 2019. He had previously adapted his story for Radio 4 under the same title, starring Tom Courtenay, which was broadcast in 2010.

Music

Lumsden plays a number of instruments including piano, guitars, bass, banjo, ukulele etc., and has composed music for cinema, television & theatre, including the orchestral & folk soundtrack to the 2009 film Morris: A Life with Bells On, a full musical score for Alice in Wonderland at the New Vic Theatre in Stoke, title music for BBC's The Morning Show, and incidental music for numerous TV dramas and theatre productions. He has played many UK gigs with his band Henry Kissing Her, releasing two albums; A Little of Who You Fancy (1996) & Pull (2006). He also released a CD of piano music, Concert From The Eyrie (2001). In 2012, Lumsden and fiddle virtuoso John Dipper released the folk album Sunshine Takes You. Lumsden released his 'final' album of songs, The Unhurt in 2020.

Background

Lumsden attended Lady Manners School, situated in Bakewell in the Peak District, before he trained at the Guildford School of Acting, graduating in 1986. In 1995, Lumsden married actress Sophie Thompson; they separated in 2015, they have two sons.

Selected Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1988 – 1989	First of the Summer Wine	Foggy Dewhurst	13 episodes
1991	The Brittas Empire	Groom	Episode: "Underwater Wedding"
	The Sharp End	Nutter	4 episodes
	Waterfront Beat	Pitcher	2 episodes
1993	Grace & Favour	Sergeant	Episode: "The Gun"
1994	Nelson's Column	Tony	Episode: "Out on a Limb"
1995	Coogan's Run	Alun Crown	Episode: "Dearth of a Salesman"
	One Foot in the Grave	Nurse	Episode: "The Affair of the Hollow Lady"
1995 – 1998	Is It Legal?	Colin Lotus	21 episodes
1997	Chalk	Ronald Langland	Episode: "The New Student"
1998	Hornblower	Midshipman Hether	Episode: "The Even Chance"
1999	Dangerfield	Darren Sullivan	Episode: "Tying the Knot"
	Wonderful You	Henry	7 episodes
2001	Attila	Petronius Maximus	2 episodes
	People Like Us	Paul	Episode: "The Mother"
2002	The House That Jack Built	Roger Squire	6 episodes
2004	All About Me	Charles	8 episodes
	Hardware	Cliff Hicks	Episode: "Loser"
2004 – 2009	The Catherine Tate Show	Martin / Bob Cratchit / Ray	6 episodes
2005	Love Soup	Stephen	Episode: "War is Heck"
2005 – 2006	Sugar Rush	Nathan Daniels	20 episodes
2007	Party Animals	Nigel	2 episodes
	Suburban Shootout	Toby Jerwood-Jones	Episode: "In It for the Wild Life/Fight Club"
2008	Dis/Connected	Josh's Dad	TV Movie
	Eastenders	Arnold	3 episodes
2009	Garrow's Law	Surgeon Tomkins	1 episode
	Grownups	Doctor	Episode: "Balls"
	Free Agents	Rick	1 episode
	U Be Dead	DI Stephen Thorpe	TV Movie
2010 – 2011	Summer in Transylvania	Mike Farley	4 episodes
2011	Life of Riley	Roger Weaver	11 episodes
2012	Little Crackers	Dad	Episode: "Rebecca Front's Little Cracker"
	Vexed	Jeff	1 episode
2013	All at Sea	Mr. King	Episode: "Bee Boy"
	By Any Means	Raymond Nash	1 episode
2013	Midsomer Murders	David Farmer	Episode: "The Sicilian Defence"
2014	Remember Me	Jeff Harding	1 episode
	Trollied	Dr. Phillip	1 episode
2015 – 2018	Millie Inbetween	Tony McDonald	29 episodes
2016	Crazyhead	Doctor Jones	Episode: "A Very Trippy Horse"
	Father Brown	Peter Blackstone	Episode: "The Resurrectionists"
2017	Doc Martin	Graham Hendy	Episode: "Blade on a Feather"
2018	Shakespeare and Hathaway	Peter Quintus	Episode: "The Promised End"
2020	Doctors	Alex Dowling	Episode: "Unspoken"
	The Singapore Grip	General Percival	4 episodes
2021	Silent Witness	Dr Taylor Lawson	Episode: "Redemption"

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	Sense and Sensibility	Robert Ferrars
1998	The Avengers	Boodle's Porter
2000	Room to Rent	Sam
2002	Silent Cry	Tim Cox
2003	The Gospel of John	Baptist's Disciple #2
2009	Morris: A Life with Bells On	Plush Gurney
2012	City Slacker	Simon
	Sightseers	Rambler
2014	Downhill	Gordon
	Heart of Lightness	Ballested
2017	Darkest Hour	General Ismay
2024	Swede Caroline	Paul

External links

• RichardLumsden.com
• Richard Lumsden at IMDb
• Richard Lumsden at British Comedy Guide