Richard has appeared on Just A Minute on Radio 4, and he voiced British Airways' TV and radio commercials for 3 years. He is an Artistic Associate of Tamasha Theatre and he leads improvisation workshops for actors and business people. Richard returned as a panelist on the BBC4 TV lateral thinking quiz 'Mindgames' in January 2006.

Richard is also co-founder with Leisa Rea of The YarnBards, storytellers who spin audience suggestions into brand new dramatised adventures and sagas. LATEST NEWS! YarnBards appear this summer in Brighton, Cambridge and London's South Bank! Follow the link for details! YarnBards were acclaimed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005 and 2007.

Richard is a big fan of Lemon Jelly and VW Type 2 camper vans.

Richard is represented by Michele Milburn at International Artists and for voiceovers by Sue Terry.

In 2008 Richard narrated the documentary "The Mentalists" on Five. He improvised in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Meribel (Altitude Festival) and at the Lattitude and Glastonbury festivals. He toured the UK for 2 months in Paul Merton's Impro Chums.

Richard doesn't work as a musician. However he has a Physics Ph.D. from Cambridge and was briefly a fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Sitting silently behind a piano on Whose Line Is It Anyway? was a badly-advised exception. You fuck one sheep...

Latest animation clip:

In 2005 Richard appeared on a charity special edition of 'The Weakest Link' on BBC1, on Radio 4's 'Puzzle Panel,' and he narrated the first series of 'The Hotel Inspector.' He performed Impro comedy at the Ars Nova Theatre, New York, as well as in Galway, Glastonbury, Glasgow, Fowey, Perth and on board the new P&O cruise liner Arcadia. He is one of Paul Merton's Impro Chums - "(Vranch)... 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, 26/8/2005.

In 2004 Richard celebrated 25 years at the Edinburgh Fringe (1979 picture below.) He played an evil father and a cheery but impotent lighthousekeeper in the play 'DOGMAN', which was restaged at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. In 2004 Richard completed a theatre tour of India, Malaysia and Barbados. He also played the Theatre Tent at Glastonbury and the Red Pear Theatre, Antibes, as well as impro gigs in Hong Kong and Singaopre.

2003 saw Richard recording two series of the BBC Radio 2 show Jammin', winner of a Sony Award for Radio Comedy. He performed in the Steve Frost Impro Allstars in Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo, Yorkshire, Singapore and Glastonbury, and voiced numerous radio and TV ads. He acted in an improvised comedy live on ITV1 West and provided the voice-over for a TV documentary about flying schools.

In 2002 Richard co-wrote the play 'Ryman and the Sheikh' for Tamasha, who originated the play and film East is East. The show played at the Pleasance, Edinburgh, the Manchester Contact Theatre and the Soho Theatre, London. He also did an assortment of radio shows, comedy gigs and voice-overs.

Richard has toured the world acting in sketch shows. 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 saw the show in Amman, Jordan. Richard also appeared in the company's 30th anniversary show in London in October 2003.

He has written travel articles for inflight magazines, and travels to Mexico at the drop of a sombrero. His first screenplay (a Faustian tale of a stand-up comedian who gets the Devil to be his agent) was commissioned by Pukka films in 1998. His first one-man show 'MEXICO' premiered in 1999 and was staged in London and Edinburgh. He's also written bizarre stuff.

Richard Vranch contributes to television programmes as a writer, actor and presenter. These include The Paul Merton Show (BBC 1, co-writing and performing), Jackanory (BBC1, making up stories), Smack the Pony (C4, writing sketches and making animation), The Rory Bremner Show (C4, playing the German State Composer), Let's Pretend (ITV1, presenting), You Bet (ITV1, betting on JCB challenges), Hello Mum (BBC2, as Bernie Bermuda), The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (appearing on stage with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and in sketches with Eleanor Bron and Willie Rushton, directed by John Cleese), Gems (ITV1, a waiter), Cue The Music (over 100 episodes presented/busked with Tony Slattery on ITV1) and his own 8x30 minute Channel 4 primetime science series 'Beat That Einstein.' He appeared in Josie Lawrence's series 'Josie' and survived an interview with Alan Titchmarsh on Pebble Mill (BBC1), and for a couple of years he reviewed the newspapers live on UK Living's afternoon show with Jayne Irving.

Richard and Jim Sweeney's script 'Lucy and the Vamp' was nominated for the 2000 BBC2 Greenlight Award. His corporate film scripts won Gold and Bronze awards at the 1997 New York Festival.

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.

He has appeared as a panelist on telly programmes including Tibs and Fibs, You Bet, Wowfabgroovey and Don't Drink the Water, and radio panels like Wordly Wise, Just a Minute, Puzzle Panel, The Back Page, From Elvis to Oasis and Cross Questioned. He has appeared as a guest on many radio shows, for example Midweek, Richard Allinson and Phill Jupitus, and he wrote lines for the classic topical comedy show 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.

Theatre work includes co-writing and performing in the Paul Merton show (a 3-man 'variety' show with Lee Simpson and Paul, on tour in 1993 then a two-week season at the London Palladium in 1994), and playing the Grand Vizier in the 1986 Latchmere Theatre panto. Richard played Eugene in a stage production of 'Grease' in 1981. He has written and performed shows for at least 18 visits to the Edinburgh Fringe between 1979 and 2004, and 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.

He has acted in impro shows at the Royal Court Theatre and Ambassador's Theatre with Eddie Izzard. The Comedy Store Players have filled many West End and regional theatres, including annual trips to Shakespeare's Globe and Regent's Park, and the Olivier Theatre (National 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 impro tours of the Middle East, Far East and Ireland.

He runs impro workshops, puts on a suit and hosts conferences for major international businesses, hosts and programmes in-flight comedy channels, and has appeared in TV commercials for ice cream and holidays.

Richard won the 1998 IVCA Gold Award with 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 in the Body Zone of the Dome. They've had cartoons published in Punch, The Spectator and Maxim.

Due to a mis-spent youth, Richard has a Ph.D. in radiation physics from the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, and he was a Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford, for 9 months. He used to teach things like special relativity, quantum mechanics, electrostatics and the Uncertainty Principle to the first year undergraduates. Dr Vranch has had research papers on radiation defects in silicon lattice structures published in semiconductor physics research journals, and he's a fan of Apple Macintosh computers.

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 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, various Impro groups and Comedy Store Players runs which filled the Music Hall in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms.

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