The Phantom of the Opera

Since training at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he worked with Leonard Bernstein on the British stage premiere of Bernstein’s Mass, Nigel has specialised in new musical theatre writing.

He spent four years at the Bridewell in the premieres of Floyd Collins (Floyd), Hello Again (Senator), Songs for a New World, La La LaChiusa, The Road You Didn’t Take and The Cutting Edge (transferred to the Donmar Warehouse).

 Other premieres include Spend Spend Spend (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Life? or Theatre? (Soho Theatre, Philadelphia and Amsterdam), Baby and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Forum, Wythenshawe) and The Green Violin (Amsterdam).

For over two years he toured in Robert Wilson’s production of Tom Waits’s The Black Rider (Barbican, San Francisco, Sydney and LA), taking over the lead role from Marianne Faithfull. Subsequent work includes playing Sienna Miller’s father in As You Like It (Wyndham’s) and the Kurt Weill’s Silverlake (Wexford Festival Opera).

Theatre includes: in the West End, Les Misérables (Palace), Martin Guerre (Prince Edward) and Napoleon (Shaftesbury). Also, Ghosts (Oswald opposite Sue Johnston), Macbeth and The Mikado (New Vic, Stoke), Blood Brothers (Olympia, Dublin), The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Cyclops (The Scoop), The Glass Menagerie (Oxford Touring Company, European tour), Hair (UK tour), Ayckbourn’s Me, Myself and I (Orange Tree) and MTL’s The Marriage of Figaro (Drill Hall, Vienna and Stuttgart).

Television includes: Doctors, Judge John Deed, Moon & Son (BBC), Virgin Birth and Sparkle Baby Sparkle (ITV). He co-wrote the award-winning short film The Crouch End Negotiator and co-starred in Lucky Old Bag.

Most recently Nigel headlined with Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn at the Barbican in Drifting and Tilting: The Songs of Scott Walker and played Stryver in the film A Tale of Two Cities (PBS).

He also teaches at the Arts Educational School, Chiswick, and has recently recorded his critically-acclaimed debut album, A Shining Truth (available at www.nigelrichards.org).

Nigel dedicates his performance to his singing teacher, the late Craig Barbour, whose dream it was for Nigel to play The Phantom.