After joining the Communist Party,[4] Richardson became a contributor to Left Review[10] and a member of the London-based left-wing Writers and Readers Group which included Randall Swingler, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mulk Raj Anand, Arthur Calder-Marshall and Rose Macaulay.
[13] David Langford has praised The Exploits of Engelbrecht for their "enjoyable absurdist humour";[2] J. G. Ballard also admired the stories, describing them as "English surrealism at its greatest.
Guests at these meetings included Jeffrey Bernard, Daniel Farson, Swingler, Lionel Bart, Frank Norman and Alan Rawsthorne.
Reviewing Fits and Starts, Mary Manning praised the book, particularly Richardson's essay on the Moors murders, which she described as "a masterpiece in this genre".
[4] Richardson married Bridget Tisdall, whose widowed mother occupied the top half of a house they owned in Paultons Square, Chelsea; the bottom half was for a time occupied by the writer and actress Theodora FitzGibbon and the surrealist painter and photographer Peter Rose Pulham.