Richard Braine
Biography
Richard Braine (born 1956) is a British television actor, playwright, and theatre director. One of his most recognisable roles was that of Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle in the ITV television third and fourth series Jeeves and Wooster based on the P.G. Wodehouse novels. In an earlier episode of the first series, he played the character Rupert Steggles. In Germany, Braine is known for appearing in a series of adverts for the Dinkel-Mini snack, after an outtake of his work on an advert for the brand appeared on a television bloopers programme and he was asked back to appear in subsequent ads.[1] His varied television career includes parts in EastEnders, Only Fools and Horses, The Brittas Empire and So What Now? and he has appeared in film roles in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), Finding Neverland (2004) and Calendar Girls (2003). He also played the character of XP, a space alien that loves prawn crisps who comes down to earth in the BBC Two schools programme The Experimenter to understand Earth life from Sarah, a schoolgirl friend played by Nadia Williams. In 1997 Braine wrote and performed a one-man play, Being There With Peter Sellers, in which he played the actor who after attempting to stop another man's suicide finds himself reflecting on his own life.[2] He also wrote Bedding Clay Jones and Sexing Alan Titchmarsh (2001).[3][4] In 2006 Braine directed Steve Martin’s play The Underpants, his adaptation of The Trousers (play) Die Hose by Carl Sternheim, at The Old Red Lion, Islington.[1] In 2016 he appeared as Henry Kirkov in the BBC series Father Brown episode 4.4 "The Crackpot of the Empire". Theatre roles include Ratty in The Wind in the Willows at the Bristol Old Vic. He also played a vicar in As Time Goes By. In April 2020, he appeared in an episode of the BBC soap opera Doctors as Bernie Sutton.[5]
Known For & Full Filmography26 Titles
Drama Series - 2013, 16 episodes • as Henry Kirkov
Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.
Drama Series - 2002, 16 episodes • as Mr Harmworth
As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. Later series sees the retired detective working as an MI5 agent operating in the aftermath of the war.
Drama Series - 1979, 16 episodes • as Armitage
Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.
Drama Series - 2002, 16 episodes • as Phil
Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
Drama Series - 2016, 16 episodes • as Tailor
The story of Queen Victoria, who came to the throne at a time of great economic turbulence and resurgent republicanism – and died 64 years later the head of the largest empire the world had ever seen, having revitalised the throne’s public image and become “grandmother of Europe”.
Drama Series - 1997, 16 episodes • as Card Carrying Druid
A Time Prophet predicted that Kai would be the one to destroy the divine order in the league of the 20,000 planets, someday that will happen, but not today. Today a cowardly security guard, an undead assassin, a female with a body designed for sex and a robot head madly in love with her all make up the crew of the spaceship Lexx, the most powerful weapon in the two universes.
Drama Series - 1990, 16 episodes • as Rupert Steggles
Jeeves and Wooster is a British comedy-drama series adapted by Clive Exton from P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories. It aired on the ITV network from 1990 to 1993, starring Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, a young gentleman with a "distinctive blend of airy nonchalance and refined gormlessness", and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, his improbably well-informed and talented valet. Wooster is a bachelor, a minor aristocrat and member of the idle rich. He and his friends, who are mainly members of The Drones Club, are extricated from all manner of societal misadventures by the indispensable valet, Jeeves. The stories are set in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1930s.
Movie - 2004, 2h 15m • as Vicar
Bridget Jones is still dating her new love, barrister Mark Darcy, for a perfect six weeks. However, while on assignment in Thailand with her disreputable ex, Daniel Cleaver, claiming to be reformed, Bridget questions if she has everything she's ever dreamed of having.
Drama Series - 1986, 16 episodes • as Sales Assistant
The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.
Drama Series - 2016, 16 episodes • as Canon Gibbons
Burnt out on office politics, Agatha Raisin retires early to a picturesque village in the Cotswolds and soon finds a second career as an amateur detective investigating mischief, mayhem, and murder in her deceptively quaint town.
Drama Series - 1988, 16 episodes • as Journalist
A series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.
Drama Series - 1992, 16 episodes • as Vicar
Two lovers are reunited after decades apart following a mutual misunderstanding.
Drama Series - 1991, 16 episodes • as Reverend Stoop
Comedienne Dawn French tackles dark, tongue-in-cheek thrillers as her various characters embark on a different mystery every episode. In one way or another, she is involved with murder — either committing the crime or even getting bumped off herself!
Drama Series - 2025, 16 episodes • as Speaker of the House
When the British prime minister's husband is kidnapped and the French president starts receiving threats, both leaders must face an impossible choice.
Drama Series - 1990, 16 episodes • as Kevin Spence
Frustrated at a new moderate Conservative government and deprived of a promotion to a senior position, chief whip Francis Urquhart prepares a meticulous plot to bring down the Prime Minister then to take his place.
Drama Series - 1993, 16 episodes • as David Lean
Gary Sparrow is an ordinary bloke in 1990s Britain, married to the ambitious Yvonne and working as a TV repairman. Then his whole world changes when he stumbles upon a portal to WWII-era London and begins a dual life as an accidental time traveler.
Drama Series - 1991, 16 episodes • as Horatio
The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. The show ran for seven series and 53 episodes — including two Christmas specials — from 1991 to 1997 on BBC1. Norriss and Fegen wrote the first five series, after which they left the show. The Brittas Empire enjoyed a long and successful run throughout the 1990s, and gained itself large mainstream audiences. In 2004 the show came 47th on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll, and all series have been released on DVD. The creators Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen often combine farce with either surreal or dramatic elements in episodes. For example in the first series, the leisure centre prepares for a royal visit, only for the doors to seal, the boiler room to flood and a visitor to become electrocuted. Unlike the traditional sitcom, deaths were quite common in The Brittas Empire.
Drama Series - 1998, 16 episodes • as Reverend Binney
In early 19th-century England, ambitious and ruthless orphan Rebecca Sharp advances from the position of governess to the heights of British society.
Drama Series - 1999, 16 episodes • as Magician
Be sure to catch this brilliant comedy show starring the brilliant pop group S Club, one of the most successful pop groups around. The show is all about the normal and ab-normal goings on with talented group of friends trying to be famous.
Drama Series - 2003, 16 episodes • Main Cast Role
Keen Eddie is an American action, comedy-drama television series that aired in 2003 on the Fox Network. The series follows a brash NYPD detective who goes to London when one of his cases goes sour and remains to work with New Scotland Yard. The basic premise of the show bears a close resemblance to the popular 1980s British series Dempsey & Makepeace, the only notable difference being that the female partner has been replaced by a female housemate. Stylistically, the series derived inspiration from British feature films by Guy Ritchie, such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. The soundtrack and incidental music for the first episode was provided by British techno duo Orbital. Daniel Ash of Love and Rockets scored the rest of the series.
Movie - 2003, 2h 15m • as Policeman
Members of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.
Drama Series - 1983, 16 episodes • as Corporal
Starring Paul Shelley in a role reminiscent of his Secret Army character in all but name, this 12-part serial follows a team of secret agents parachuted into occupied Europe during World War II, exploring their recruitment, training, and first mission behind enemy lines.
Drama Series - 2002, 16 episodes • as Major
Believe Nothing is a British ITV sitcom starring Rik Mayall as Quadruple Professor Adonis Cnut, the cleverest man in Britain, and Oxford's leading moral philosopher. He is paid huge amounts of money for his views consulted by the government but he's bored and wants adventure so he joins the shadowy organization The Council which controls everything going on in the world. Starring alongside Mayall is Michael Maloney as Brian Albumen, Cnut's faithful servant, and Emily Bruni as Dr. Hannah Awkward who becomes professor of pedantics. The series was written by Maurice Gran and Laurence Marks, who give a twist to many of today's global issues. Although much hyped by ITV, who were hoping to repeat the success of Gran and Marks' previous project with Mayall, the successful The New Statesman, the series failed to catch on, and was dropped after one series.
Movie - 1998, 2h 15m • as Mr. Tweeb
Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of the 'eighties and early 'nineties. Although it specifically targets A Room with a View, Chariots of Fire, Maurice, A Passage to India, and many other films, in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits: propriety, sexual repression, xenophobia, and class snobbery.
Movie - 1982, 2h 15m • as Self - Publisher
Documentary portrait of the life of playwright Joe Orton, who was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell in April 1967.
Movie - 1991, 2h 15m • as Journalist
Black comedy play about two pensioners struggling to manage on an old-age pension and living in a high-rise block of flats.