Richard Murdoch
Encyclopedia
Richard Bernard Murdoch (6 April 19079 October 1990) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 comedic
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

 radio, film and television performer.

Richard Bernard Murdoch attended Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...

. He then appeared in Footlights
Footlights
Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University....

 whilst a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...

. Murdoch had his radio break in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 comedy programme Band Waggon
Band Waggon
Band Waggon was a comedy radio show broadcast by the BBC from 1938 to 1940. The first season featured Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch. In the second season, Askey and Murdoch were joined by Syd Walker, and the third season added Diana Clare for two episodes.Band Waggon was the first comedy show to...

(1938–40) as part of a double act with Arthur Askey
Arthur Askey
Arthur Bowden Askey CBE was a prominent English comedian.- Life and career :Askey was born at 29 Moses Street, Liverpool, the eldest child and only son of Samuel Askey , secretary of the firm Sugar Products of Liverpool, and his wife, Betsy Bowden , of Knutsford, Cheshire...

, acquiring the nickname "Stinker" as a result. He reprised this role in the 1940 film of the same name and after the war appeared in the TV version, Living It Up. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he served in the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

.

He married the actress Peggy Rawlings in 1932, and they had three children, Belinda, Jane and Timothy.

He famously composed rather suggestive doggerel
Doggerel
Doggerel is a derogatory term for verse considered of little literary value. The word probably derived from dog, suggesting either ugliness, puppyish clumsiness, or unpalatability in the 1630s.-Variants:...

 about Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was " Soiltude", which contains the lines: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone"...

 as lyrics to the opening bars of Alexandre Luigini
Alexandre Luigini
Alexandre Clément Léon Joseph Luigini was a French composer and conductor, especially active in the opera house. As as composer, he is now remembered almost solely for his Ballet égyptien.-Life and career:...

's Ballet égyptien
Ballet égyptien
Ballet égyptien, Op. 12 , is Alexandre Luigini's best-known composition, and is the only one of his works in the standard repertoire....

.

Murdoch appeared with Kenneth Horne
Kenneth Horne
Kenneth Horne was an English comedian and businessman. The son of a clergyman and politician, he combined a successful business career with regular broadcasting for the BBC. His first hit series Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh written with his co-star Richard Murdoch arose out of his wartime service as...

 in the BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

 comedy series Much Binding in the Marsh
Much Binding in the Marsh
Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh was the title of a comedy BBC radio and Radio Luxembourg show broadcast from 1944 to 1954, starring Kenneth Horne and Richard Murdoch as senior staff in a fictional RAF station battling red tape and wartime inconvenience...

from 1944-54. He also appeared in The Men from the Ministry
The Men from the Ministry
The Men from the Ministry was a British radio comedy series broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977, starring Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard Murdoch and, from 1966, when he replaced Hyde-White, Deryck Guyler...

from 1962–77, a radio comedy series about two civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....

 members, with initially Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...

, but more famously Deryck Guyler
Deryck Guyler
Deryck Guyler was an English actor, best known for his portrayal of officious, short-tempered middle-aged men in sitcoms such as Please Sir! and Sykes.-Early life:...

.

His first film role, according to the IMDb, was as a dancer in Looking on the Bright Side in 1932, a vehicle for Gracie Fields
Gracie Fields
Dame Gracie Fields, DBE , was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.-Early life:...

.

He appeared as a Privy Councillor in Witchsmeller Pursuivant
Witchsmeller Pursuivant
"Witchsmeller Pursuivant" is the fifth episode of The Black Adder, the first series of the BBC One sitcom Blackadder.- Plot :In 1495, the Black Plague is ravaging Europe, and infects King Richard, rendering him more deranged than usual; when Edmund comes to visit, the King nearly stabs him to...

, an episode of the first series of Blackadder
Blackadder
Blackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC1 historical sitcom, along with several one-off instalments. All television programme episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as anti-hero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robinson as Blackadder's dogsbody, Baldrick...

in 1983.

In the early 1980s, Murdoch provided the English narration for the Polish animated version of The Moomins
The Moomins (TV series)
The Moomins is a stop motion animated children's television series based on the Tove Jansson's Moomin series of books which was originally produced by Se-ma-for and Jupiter Film between the years 1977–1982, originally for Polish, Austrian and German television. The series was later on sold to...

, from the classic series of books by Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson
Tove Marika Jansson was a Swedish-Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. She is best known as the author of the Moomin books.- Biography :...

.

Murdoch had a regular role as Uncle Tom, the briefless senior barrister of chambers, in Rumpole of the Bailey
Rumpole of the Bailey
Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer which starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an ageing London barrister who defends any and all clients...

; this being his last TV role, according to IMDb.

Murdoch died on 9 October 1990, aged 83, with his final appearance broadcast in 1991, a few months after his death.

Selected filmography

  • Over She Goes
    Over She Goes
    Over She Goes is a 1938 British musical comedy film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Stanley Lupino, Claire Luce, Gina Malo and Max Baer. It was based on a play by Lupino...

    (1938)
  • Band Waggon
    Band Waggon (film)
    Band Waggon is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch and Moore Marriott. It was based on the BBC radio show Band Waggon.-Plot:...

    (1940)
  • The Ghost Train
    The Ghost Train (1941 film)
    The Ghost Train is a 1941 British film directed by Walter Forde and was based on the 1923 play of the same name written by Arnold Ridley, who in later years played Private Godfrey in Dad's Army.- Plot:...

    (1941)
  • I Thank You
    I Thank You (film)
    I Thank You is a 1941 British comedy filmdirected by Marcel Varnel and starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott. It was produced by Edward Black at Gainsborough Pictures.- Plot summary :...

    (1941)
  • It Happened in Soho (1948)
  • Golden Arrow
    Golden Arrow (film)
    Golden Arrow is a 1949 British comedy film directed by Gordon Parry and starring Burgess Meredith, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Kathleen Harrison. On a journey from Paris to London, an Englishman, a Frenchman and an American bond with each other and indulge in a romantic fantasy about a girl they...

    (1949)
  • Lilli Marlene
    Lilli Marlene (film)
    Lilli Marlene is a 1950 British historical drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Hugh McDermott, Lisa Daniely and Stanley Baker...

    (1950)
  • Strictly Confidential
    Strictly Confidential (film)
    Strictly Confidential is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Charles Saunders and starring Richard Murdoch, William Kendall, Maya Koumani and Neil Hallett. Two con-men, recently released from prison, are enlisted by a widow to help her recover control of her late husband's business which has...

    (1959)
  • Not a Hope in Hell (1960)
  • Whoops Apocalypse
    Whoops Apocalypse
    Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 television sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 movie from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two...

    (1986)

External links

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