Richard Thomas Osman (born 28 November 1970) is an English author, television presenter, producer, novelist, and comedian. He is the creator and former co-presenter of the BBC One television quiz show Pointless.^[1] He has presented the BBC Two quiz shows Two Tribes and Richard Osman's House of Games, and been a team captain on the comedy panel shows Insert Name Here and The Fake News Show. He has made appearances on British panel shows including Would I Lie To You? and QI.

Osman worked at Hat Trick Productions before becoming creative director of the television production company Endemol UK, producing shows including Prize Island for ITV and Deal or No Deal for Channel 4. He is the author of the bestselling crime novels The Thursday Murder Club (2020), The Man Who Died Twice (2021), The Bullet That Missed (2022) and The Last Devil To Die (2023).

Richard Thomas Osman was born on 28 November 1970 in Billericay, Essex, to Brenda Wright and David Osman, and grew up in Cuckfield near Haywards Heath, West Sussex. When he was nine years old, his father walked out on the family, which Osman says created difficulty for the rest of his life. His mother attended teacher training college and found making money to support her family a struggle.^[2] His older brother is the musician Mat Osman, bass guitarist with the rock band Suede.^[3]

Osman attended Warden Park School in Cuckfield.^[4] While still at school, he gained his first broadcasting experience, as a regular contributor to Turn It Up, an open-access music show which went out on Sunday evenings on BBC Radio Sussex (the show was also notable for giving early broadcast experience to BBC news journalist Jane Hill and radio DJ Jo Whiley). From 1989 to 1992, he studied Politics and Sociology at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Pointless co-presenter Alexander Armstrong, who read English.^[5][6]

Viking Press, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, acquired the rights to Osman's debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, and one other novel, for a seven-figure sum in a 10-publisher auction in 2019. It was said that his first book would be published in autumn 2020, and the second the following year, as part of a crime series.^[19] His debut crime novel's release date was announced as 3 September 2020.^[20]

The Thursday Murder Club series is set in a luxury retirement village in Kent where four residents gather to investigate crime cases, including a "live" murder mystery. Osman said that he was "in talks" for a TV adaptation of his novel.^[21] He later confirmed that Steven Spielberg had acquired the book's film rights.^[22] The book has sold well over one million copies in the UK, and sold 45,000 UK hardback copies in the first three days after publication.^[23]

The first novel in the series was followed by The Man Who Died Twice in 2021, The Bullet That Missed in 2022,^[24][25] and The Last Devil To Die in 2023;^[26][27] the latter reached number-one on the New York Times Best Seller list.^[28] A fifth book is planned for release in 2025.^[29]

Osman's upcoming book, We Solve Murders, will be the first in a new series. It is due to release in September 2024.^[30]

Osman presented The Birthday Game podcast.^[31] Since 2021, he has featured in podcast adverts for premium ready-meal brand Charlie Bigham's.^[32]

In December 2021, Osman was the guest for BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. His choices included "American Boy" by Estelle with Kanye West and "A Little Respect" by Erasure, with his favourite "You Can't Stop the Beat" by the cast of Hairspray.

He revealed that he has had a food addiction since childhood and said that he had therapy for the disorder, but believed that it would be lifelong.^[33][34]

On 9 June 2022, Osman was the subject of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? in which he discovered that a distant relative had been involved in a celebrated Victorian murder case.^[35][36][37]

Osman was born with nystagmus, an eye condition that significantly reduces his vision.^[38] He learns his scripts by heart as his condition makes it difficult to read an autocue.^[39]

Osman has two children from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.^[40][34] On 3 December 2022 he married British actress Ingrid Oliver, whom he met when she was a contestant on Richard Osman's House Of Games.^[41] He lives in Chiswick, West London.^[42][43] He is a season ticket holder at Fulham F.C..^[44]

On 6 December 2011, Osman became an "unlikely heartthrob" after winning Heat's "Weirdest Crush Award".^[45]