Matt Richards

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For the Brighton football player, see Matthew Richards (footballer).

Matt Richards (b. 21st November 1967) is a television producer/director/writer from St Minver in Cornwall who has gained a national and international reputation for his documentary work. After attending the University of Westminster Film School he raised the budget to follow explorer Michael Turner on an expedition to Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands and make a short film about his efforts to document the landing places of Sir Francis Drake. This film was so well received that the BBC commissioned Matt to complete the film which included a voyage to Panama to attempt to locate and raise the coffin of Sir Francis Drake. This expedition failed but the subsequent film '"In Drake's Wake" was popular on BBC2. His next film was "The Gold Plane", again for BBC2. Narrated by John Nettles, this 50-minute film followed the quest to prove that a plane crash in 1944 was the work of sabotage to prevent the secrets of D-Day being revealed to General De Gaulle in Algiers. Since then he has become well-known for his historical documentaries which include "Spilt Blood", "In Search of the King", "The Falklands War - The Real Thing", "People's War", "Industrial Revelations - Best of British" and "Secrets Beneath Our Feet". In addition to these programmes and series he has directed long-running observational documentary series such as "A National Treasure", "The Tale of Three Farms", "Civvy To Sailor", "Fighter Pilot" and "Parklife". Other series include "Out & About", "How Do They Do It?", "Collector's Lot", "My Greek Kitchen", "Treasures", "Front of House", "Seventy Years Under The Stars", "Team Spirit", "Health Matters", "Cornish Chronicles", and "Big Day Out". Recent programmes have included "Wife Swap" for Channel Four and "Extraordinary People" for Five.