Richard Heller

Richard Heller is a Master of the Arts of Oxford University and of many other arts besides. He went to Repton School and Balliol College. He was a long-serving humorous columnist on The Mail On Sunday and more briefly on The Times. He was also the main non-fiction book reviewer for The Mail On Sunday for seven years. He worked in the movie business in the United States and the UK, including a brief engagement on a motion picture called Cycle Sluts Versus The Zombie Ghouls. He wrote two cricket-themed novels A Tale Of Ten Wickets and The Network. He appeared in two finals on BBC Television’s Mastermind: one of his specialist subjects was Sir Garry Sobers. He was chief of staff to Denis Healey, then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, and Gerald Kaufman, then Shadow Home Secretary. With Peter Oborne he wrote White On Green, celebrating the drama of Pakistan cricket (shortlisted for the MCC/Cricket Society book of the year in 2017). They are currently making podcasts to relieve the cricket-deprived.

https://chiswickcalendar.co.uk/blogs-podcasts/#cricket-podcast

Richard Heller still tries to play cricket, although now in the sunset of a career which never really had a dawn. He is a medium-pace swing bowler who moves the ball both ways off the bat.

He is a piano player whose versions of the Frank Sinatra songbook are wildly popular with the neighbours in his apartment building. They bang on the walls and the ceilings for encores, sometimes half the night, they just won't let go.