Richard Osman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Richard Osman
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Osman in 2022
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| Born | 28 November 1970 Billericay, Essex, England
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| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge (BA) |
| Occupation | Producer • television presenter • novelist |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Known for |
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Notable work
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Thursday Murder Club series |
| Height | 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) |
| Spouse(s) |
Ingrid Oliver
(m. 2022) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Mat Osman (brother) |
Richard Osman (born 28 November 1970) is a well-known English television presenter, producer, and author. He is famous for creating and co-presenting the popular BBC One quiz show Pointless. He has also hosted other quiz shows like Two Tribes and Richard Osman's House of Games. Besides TV, he is a bestselling author of the Thursday Murder Club mystery novels.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Richard Osman was born on 28 November 1970, in Billericay, Essex, England. His parents are Brenda Wright and David Osman. When he was nine, his father left the family. This made life difficult for his mother, who became a teacher to support them.
Richard has an older brother, Mat Osman, who is a musician. Mat plays bass guitar in the rock band Suede. The brothers grew up in Haywards Heath, West Sussex.
Richard went to Yardley Court and Warden Park School. While still at school, he got his first experience in broadcasting. He was a regular helper on Turn It Up, a music show on BBC Radio Sussex.
From 1989 to 1992, he studied Politics and Sociology at Trinity College, Cambridge. Here, he met Alexander Armstrong, who later became his co-presenter on Pointless.
Television Career
Richard Osman has had a long and successful career in television. He has worked both behind the scenes as a producer and in front of the camera as a presenter.
Producing TV Shows
Before becoming a presenter, Richard was an executive producer for many British game shows. He worked on shows like the Channel 4 comedy panel game 8 Out of 10 Cats. He was also a creative director at Endemol UK, a TV production company.
He came up with the idea for Pointless and presented it to the BBC. When the show started in 2009, he became the co-presenter alongside his university friend, Alexander Armstrong.
Richard also created the ITV game show Prize Island in 2013. He was a script editor for Total Wipeout on BBC One. In 1999, he helped create and write the Channel 4 sitcom Boyz Unlimited. He also co-created the animated sitcom Bromwell High in 2005. Richard left Endemol in 2020.
Presenting and Pointless
From 2009 to 2022, Richard Osman was the co-presenter of Pointless. This popular quiz show airs on BBC One. He is often jokingly called Alexander Armstrong's "pointless friend" on the show. Richard got the presenting job after he pitched the show idea to the BBC. He took on the role of the assistant during the demonstration.
Richard has also hosted other shows. In 2014, he started presenting Two Tribes on BBC Two. He also guest-presented episodes of The One Show. From 2016, he was a team captain on the BBC Two comedy show Insert Name Here.
In 2017, he began hosting his own show, Richard Osman's House of Games. In this show, four celebrities compete in general knowledge games each weekday. A spin-off show, House of Games Night, started in 2020 on BBC One.
On 8 April 2022, Richard announced he was leaving Pointless after 1,300 episodes. He wanted to spend more time writing his successful The Thursday Murder Club books. He still appears on the spin-off show, Pointless Celebrities. He said he would miss working with Alexander Armstrong and the team. Alexander Armstrong joked that "Daytime television's loss is international best-selling crime fiction's gain."
In November 2023, Richard started a podcast called The Rest Is Entertainment with Marina Hyde.
Literary Career
In 2019, Viking Press bought the rights to Richard Osman's first two novels. His first crime novel, The Thursday Murder Club, was published on 3 September 2020.
The Thursday Murder Club series is about four friends in a retirement village in Kent. They get together to solve crime cases, including real murder mysteries. In August 2020, Richard confirmed that Steven Spielberg bought the film rights for the book. The book sold 45,000 copies in the UK in its first three days. By March 2021, it had sold over one million copies in the UK.
The first book was followed by The Man Who Died Twice in 2021. Then came The Bullet That Missed in 2022, and The Last Devil To Die in 2023. The Last Devil To Die became a number one bestseller on the New York Times list. A fifth book in the series, The Impossible Fortune, is planned for release in September 2025.
Richard Osman's latest book, We Solve Murders, is the first in a new series. It was released in September 2024.
Other Activities
Richard Osman has also been involved in other projects. He presented The Birthday Game podcast. In December 2021, he was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
On 9 June 2022, Richard was featured on the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are?. On the show, he found out that a distant relative was involved in a famous Victorian murder case.
Personal Life
Richard Osman was born with nystagmus. This is an eye condition that makes his vision not as good. Because of this, he learns his TV scripts by heart instead of reading them from a screen. He has also spoken about having a food addiction since he was a child. He has had therapy for it and believes it is a lifelong challenge.
Richard has two children from his first marriage, which ended in divorce. On 3 December 2022, he married Ingrid Oliver. They met when she was a contestant on Richard Osman's House Of Games.
Richard is very tall, standing at 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m). He has joked that his height was one reason he couldn't become a spy for MI6.
Images for kids
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Richard Osman in 2022
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Richard Osman at a crime writing festival in 2019
