Richard Vobes

Richard Vobes is an English entertainer, actor, independent filmmaker, writer and award-winning podcaster. He has produced close to 3,000 audio podcasts since January 2005. He has worked in both the corporate and broadcast sector. He trained in mime, was self-taught in various circus skills and experienced in both 16mm film and video production.

Richard Vobes
Born (1963-07-30) 30 July 1963
Hampshire, England
NationalityBritish
Years active1982–present
Notable works and rolesSnug and Cozi (1996-97)
The vobes show (2005- )

Biography

Born in Liss in Hampshire on 30 July 1963, Vobes moved to Horsham in West Sussex when he was five and attended the Forest School for Boys until he left education in 1979. He worked in commercial printing and repro-graphics for a couple of years, became a sound engineer and mime teacher amongst other short-term employment. He attended various drama courses and spent a year at the Desmond Jones School of Mime in London in the mid-Eighties.

During this period, Vobes worked within the television industry as a Walk On role in numerous British television programmes, including The Bill, Hercule Poirot, London's Burning, Eastenders, Wish Me Luck, Waiting for God.Vobes also developed a children's television character, Percy Peeverly, and wrote and hosted three series of Cartoon shows for the Services Sound and Vision Corporation for overseas transmissions to British Army-based.

The corporate entertain industry, as well as festival, fetes and gala events, saw him perform various street theatre and circus skill performances including juggling, uni-cycling, fire-eating, ladder walking, global walking and of course mime. He also performed feats such as walking on glass, robotics, lying on a bed of nails and walking on a slack rope. As a mime performer, Richard toured around the country in the 1980s with a one-man show called Tiny Aeroplanes and numerous other productions. He set up the Toadstool Theatre Company and appeared the Stirling festival among many others.

In 1994, Vobes developed and produced a pilot episode of a children's television episode entitled Snug and Cozi. This was shot on 16mm film and pitched to the industry. It was subsequently picked up by the ITV Network and produced by Scottish Television and broadcast on CITV (Children's ITV). Series one in 1996 and Series Two in 1997.

Vobes set up Vobavision, a television production company in the mid-nineties to produce and pitch further television ideas for which much credit was given on the quality of the video pitches he presented. The Internet offered an interesting way to provide entertainment directly to the consumer and Vobes began his daily podcast The Vobes Show, and behind-the-scenes show, The Naked Englishman from 2005 and continues to record and upload this to a loyal listener base across the world. In August 2005 Vobes was awarded the 2005 People's Choice Podcast Awards Winner for its sound seeing tours. The show was sponsored by its listeners to make two excursions to America to record a series of podcasts as they carried out various road trips.

In 2006 Vobes discovered he had been infected with Acanthamoeba Keratitis, a blinding condition in his left eye caught from contact lenses.[1] This attacked his left cornea over a prolonged period and in October 2010, the eye had to be removed. He now wears a prosthesis. In 2011, Vobes launched a new documentary video series online exploring British history and travel, entitled The Bald Explorer.[2]The first three episodes of The Bald Explorer were broadcast on the Community Channel in October 2012 which a further three due to be transmitted in late Feb/March 2013. In 2014 Richard Vobes self-published his children's novel Splidge the Cragflinger, available at online retailers.

References
  1. Acanthamoeba keratitis
  2. http://www.BaldExplorer.com
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