[4]: 17  As a teenager at Alderman White Secondary Modern School, he played the lead in Tobias and the Angel and also appeared as Hsieh Ping-Kuei in Lady Precious Stream, which earned him a positive review in the Nottingham Evening Post.

He spent a year working in numerous manual labour jobs, including spells as an upholsterer's apprentice, a pipe inspector, and an assistant in a grocery business.

[11][12] Richard made his television debut in 1969 as a police officer in Coronation Street, in which he had to arrest veteran character Ena Sharples.

[13] After being recommended by several other actors for the part, Richard landed his first starring role as Geoffrey in the sitcom The Lovers (1970–71), opposite fellow newcomer Paula Wilcox.

[14] The show put both leading performers in the eye of the public and a film version was made in 1973 with both Richard and Wilcox reprising their roles.

[15] From 1974 to 1977, Richard starred as prison inmate Lennie Godber alongside Ronnie Barker in the hit BBC sitcom Porridge.

[18] While appearing in Porridge on the BBC, Richard simultaneously starred as naive medical student Alan Moore in the ITV sitcom Rising Damp[19] also from 1974 to 1977.

Writer Eric Chappell stated: "Although not the oldest, he was the most experienced sitcom actor of the quartet, having already appeared in The Lovers and Porridge.

"[20]: 9–10  Richard had previously worked with Leonard Rossiter in the 1974 Johnny Speight drama If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have To Invent Them.

[21] Because of a scheduling conflict with the musical I Love My Wife, in which he was starring, Richard was unable to appear in the fourth series of Rising Damp.

Richard starred in his final television comedy, Bloomers, the five completed episodes of which eventually aired in September and October 1979 on BBC 2.

[23] In between series one and two of The Lovers Richard starred in an ITV children's show titled Elephant's Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree.

Ronnie Barker and Fulton MacKay of Porridge, Leonard Rossiter and Don Warrington of Rising Damp, and Paula Wilcox of The Lovers all gave tributes during the show.

In October 1980, Frederick Muller Ltd. posthumously published a volume of Richard's poetry entitled "With Love" (ISBN 0-584-10387-5).

In 1965, he married his pregnant girlfriend, a local Nottingham woman named Margaret Bradley, whom he had met in 1964 while singing at a folk club.

[33] They separated in 1968 when Margaret took Samantha back to live in Nottingham and Richard left London to work in repertory in Crewe.

[41] According to his Bloomers co-star Anna Calder-Marshall, during the recording of the first episode, he told her he had suffered some kind of blackout and had some dizzy spells.

[4]: 155-156  Because of an industrial dispute at the BBC in late December 1978, the filming of the sixth episode of Bloomers had to be postponed until March.

[42] In January 1979, for an insurance policy for a film, Richard passed a full medical examination in which his heart, lungs, breathing, and blood pressure were checked.

A week before he died, Richard complained to his wife Judy Loe of feeling unwell and said he was unable to take her to hospital.

Before going to bed, he telephoned a couple of friends, and, during the conversation, he repeated that he had been feeling unwell, and also said that he had some pain in his chest and arms.

[48] Richard had expressed worries about his cholesterol to friend Stephen Frears over dinner just days earlier, but he seemed healthy and fit and had no cardiac problems in his medical records.

Rising Damp co-star Frances de la Tour stated: "It is such a shock that someone as young and obviously fit as him should die so suddenly.

[52] On 19 April 1979, one month after his death, more than 300 people attended a memorial service at the actors' church St Paul's in Covent Garden.

[4]: 175  Leonard Rossiter, Fulton MacKay, Richard Briers, and Porridge writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais gave tributes during the service.

One scene showed Richard questioning a character in the film with a tough stance, and looking quite different than his usual appearance with much shorter cropped hair.

Richard holds the distinction of having starred in three different sitcoms, each of which won the BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy, in three successive years: Porridge in 1977, Rising Damp in 1978, and Going Straight in 1979.

It featured interviews with his widow, the actress Judy Loe, as well as his father, sister, closest school friend and two daughters.

[57] In 2007, Alan Davies nominated Richard as his chosen subject for the BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives.

[61] In 2018, as part of an art project in Richard's former hometown of Beeston, a mural of him was commissioned by the town council and painted by the French street artist, Zabou.