Richard is Director of Open Theatre, which aims to place the creativity of young people with learning disabilities at the centre of the cultural life of Birmingham and Coventry. Richard established The Shysters, a company of actors with learning disabilities, in 1997 and through the development of a unique nonverbal physical theatre practice, the company gained a national reputation for the ground-breaking quality of its performance work ‘on the borderlines of theatre, dance and mime’. For the past fifteen years Richard has been forging long-term creative collaborations with special schools and a range of cultural organisations based in the West Midlands region, to maximise the impact that nonverbal physical theatre practice can have on children’s learning and development and on their transition into adult life.