Richard Osman

Despite his ‘proper’ job as a behind-the-scenes TV executive, Richard Osman is best-known as the former co-presenter of the BBC's daytime quiz show Pointless, alongside Alexander Armstrong, and more recently as a best-selling critically acclaimed crime fiction author.

A friend of Armstrong’s since university, where he studied politics and sociology at Trinity College, Cambridge, the pair’s on-screen chemistry contributed greatly to the show’s popularity with Alexander’s approachable presentation style and Richard being the font of all pointless knowledge.

With a career in television and comedy spanning more than two decades, prior to making appearances in front of the camera, Richard Osman worked at Hat Trick Productions before becoming creative director of TV production company Endemol UK, producing shows including Prize Island for ITV and Deal or No Deal for Channel 4. He has also been the executive producer on several well-known celebrity panel shows including 8 Out of 10 Cats, Whose Line is it Anyway? and satirical comedy 10 O'Clock Live.

He was script editor for BBC One's Total Wipeout, and in 1999 he created and wrote Channel 4 sitcom Boyz Unlimited along with David Walliams and Matt Lucas.

He’s also appeared on Have I Got News For You, Would I Lie to You?, QI, Michael McIntyre's The Wheel, and has guest-hosted The One Show. In 2017, he began hosting his own self-titled show Richard Osman's House of Games; a weekday celebrity game show where four panelists compete in general knowledge tests in a variety of entertaining games.

In 2019 Richard sold the rights to his debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, plus one further novel, for a seven-figure sum to a subsidiary of Penguin Random House following a ten-way auction. As well as becoming the fastest selling adult crime debut in recorded history, it was widely praised by critics.

Selling in excess of a million copies in the UK alone, it was later confirmed that Hollywood movie mogul Steven Spielberg had acquired the book's film rights. The Thursday Murder Club series is set in a luxury retirement village in Kent and follows Joyce, Ibrahim, Ron and Elizabeth, four octogenarians who meet on Thursday evenings to investigate unsolved killings. But when a local property developer is found dead, the Thursday Murder Club finds themselves in the middle of their first live case.

The first novel in the series was followed by The Man Who Died Twice in 2021, The Bullet That Missed in 2022 and The Last Devil To Die was published in 2023; the latter of which reached number-one on the New York Times Best Seller list. In September 2023, The Thursday Murder Club series hit 10 million copies sold worldwide.

Somewhat bizarrely, in 2022 Richard Osman was the subject of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? genealogy programme, during which he discovered that a distant relative had been involved in a then-high profile Victorian murder case.

A huge sports fan, Richard is a Fulham FC season ticket holder and has appeared on 5Live’s Fighting Talk, coverage of the World Snooker Championships, and he competed in Let's Play Darts for Comic Relief.

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Clients often ask about purchasing books for giveaways and delegate packs. Below you’ll find a selection of products by Richard Osman. Click the images to view on Amazon's website. For bulk orders, please speak with your Booking Agent.