Richard John Ridings is an English actor. He portrayed Alan Ashburn in the ITV television drama Fat Friends, Mr. Lipa in the Academy Award-nominated World War II drama The Pianist (2002), Bernard Green in the BBC One comedy-drama Common as Muck, Mr. Bumble in the BBC series Dickensian, and is the voice of Daddy Pig in Peppa Pig. He trained as an actor at Bretton Hall College, then the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He is the father of singer-songwriter Freya Ridings.
Career
He had roles in a series of other television series and feature films, among them Clockwise, The Ink Thief, Red Dwarf, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Fierce Creatures and as Silas in Highlander: The Series. Ridings voices Daddy Pig in the animated children's series Peppa Pig, Father Christmas and Boss Dwarf in Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, and Grooby in Q Pootle 5. In 2005, he took the lead role in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Clement Doesn't Live Here Anymore, playing a sexually obsessed overweight ghost alongside Steve Furst and Amanda Abbington.
