Richard White

Richard started in films, and worked as a film editor with Hugh Hudson, Ridley Scott and many household names. He cut Hugh Hudson's first feature film and Perry Henzel's The Harder They Come, the legendary Jamaican feature with Jimmy Cliff, winning the editing prize at the Cork Festival. He started his own company to edit science, current affairs and arts documentaries, for the BBC and film and television companies, winning many awards, but soon started writing and directing as well. He went on to teach film and video at universities and independent colleges, to act as director and consultant on documentaries and dramas, and to write drama in the USA, Europe and the Caribbean.

He directed Farewell Miss Julie Logan by Rose MacLennan Craig, which ran to full houses at Greyfriars Kirk House during the Edinburgh Fringe, 2005, and later toured in Scotland. In November 2006 he co-wrote and directed Violet Jacob's Voices of Angus, which filled houses for the National Trust. In 2005 he directed Only Some can take the Strain from Possibilities by Howard Barker at the Morley College acting degree show, which also included Richard's short play, Evelyn Three. There was a reading of his play, The Jewish Mosque with Napoleon Ryan and Katy Darby in June 2003 at Player-Playwrights in central London. This play had another rehearsed reading with the New Works Company in Hammersmith, London, in April 2009, with Kevin Moore, Richard Walker and Olivia Hill, directed by C Jay Ranger. A further reading was at Samuel French's bookshop in 2014.

He wrote and performed in part of an open-air community show based on fairy stories in Bonnington Square Gardens, summer 2006. He directed studio performance of How to be Happy by Bonnington member Sue Blundell in America, October 2007. In July 2007 his play Choosing formed part of the Bonnington Playwrights production, The Quite Peculiar and Irresistible Charm of Ellen Terry, which played to packed houses in the medieval Barn Theatre at Smallhythe Place in Kent. This play has been revived at the magical Actors' Church in Covent Garden in October 2009, with a partly new cast and directed by Rob McIndoe, and had a successful run in a slightly revised version, with wonderful music from Simon Gutteridge.

There has been a rehearsed reading of Richard and Rose MacLennan Craig's play, The Myth Makers in November 2009, at the Mendocino Art Center, Northern California, directed by Valerie MacMillan with David Woolis as Capt Scott and Carter Sears as J.M. Barrie. This had an astonishing reception from an audience who knew little of the history. This same play has been developed further and had a reading in North Berwick, Scotland, where it provoked the main feature in The Scotsman, about Barrie and Scott. The play reached London’s West End on the centenary of Scott’s death in 2012, in a successful run at the Charing Cross Theatre. It was chosen for the New York Fringe Festival and ran in the Lower East Side during 2013.

The Bonnington Playwrights production of Painting with Light ran at Crown Court in Covent Garden in 2010, directed by Richard. Richard has written a short play, The Cure, which formed part of Night of the Umbrella in January 2015.

Richard and Rose MacLennan Craig adapted The Mythmakers as a radio play in 2014, with the technical help of Mark Smith. This was entered for the Herne Bay International Radio Drama Festival in 2015, and it won the audience prize. It can be heard at https://www.mixcloud.com/Kaspaar/the-mythmakers/, and there is an interview with Richard and Rosie on https://www.mixcloud.com/Kaspaar/celticcircle-interview/.

Richard is a member of The Bonnington Playwrights and with Rose MacLennan Craig of Celtic Circle. He is also a member of Actors and Writers, London.

Email Richard: [email protected]

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