About us…
Richard and Oliver met in Leeds in the late nineteen eighties and appeared together on stage several times, including Richard playing a comic version of Robin Hood in a piece written by Oliver, who took the role of King John. They moved to London at very similar times to find fame and fortune and shared a flat in Streatham for the first few years of this adventure.
Richard Lane
Richard was born in Bedford in 1967 and educated at Bedford Modern School and the University of Leeds. His working life started in London in 1990, selling classified advertising space for The Independent newspaper. After experiencing sight loss in his early twenties, Richard trained in public relations at the Royal National Institute for blind People (RNIB), before joining The Lancet medical journal in 1999 as its first Press Officer. He stayed at The Lancet for nearly 20 years, becoming one of its Web Editors, where he launched the journal’s audio podcasts in 2006. Richard left The Lancet in 2019 although still writes for them on a freelance basis; also in 2019 he began studying for the wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) diploma in wines, having been inspired in wine after taking a sabbatical year in SW France with his wife Liz and guide dog Topper. Richard passed WSET Diploma with merit in 2021, and has qualified as a certified WSET educator. He has recently started freelance teaching for WSET London School in Bermondsey. When not working, Richard can be heard playing his violin in ad-hoc concerts in his hometown of Farnham, Surrey.
Oliver Turnbull
Within 10 minutes of meeting him, like any good Yorkshireman, Oliver will happily let it slip that he comes from Yorkshire. He was born and educated in Bradford before fruitlessly studying physics at Nottingham University. He moved to London in 1990 with a dream of becoming a comedy writer, but as soon as the bills started coming in, fell back on his first love: being a computer nerd. This didn’t stop him having a side-line in stand-up comedy, where he spent many evenings in the 90s getting laughs on the London circuit and beyond. Following the unsolicited advice of many of his audience members, he didn’t give up the day job and now works for a posh management consultancy, digitising public and private sector organisations and introducing them to the wonders of artificial intelligence. The urge to show off or “perform” as he prefers to call it, led Oliver into the world of podcasting in 2019 when, together with another long-standing friend, Dr. Paul Keedwell, he launched “Why The Long Face”, a surprisingly humorous and, even more surprisingly, popular, look at mental health. Apart from podcasting and working, Oliver enjoys riding his daughter’s horse, using his son’s camera and playing his own guitar. He has been married to Louise for 8 years, following a considered 20-year courtship, and lives in Kent.