Neil Richardson

As a composer, Richardson was best known for his library music – incidental music for use in films and television, for example his "Approaching Menace", used as the theme to Mastermind. In the 1960s, he often composed under the pseudonym "Oscar Brandenburg", a name he shared with Johnny Pearson and Alan Moorhouse, also well known in this area. For example, he co-composed the test card piece "Scotch Broth". Another of his library music compositions, "The Riviera Affair" (aka "Prestige Production", from the 1970 KPM album Impact and Action, Vol. II), is best known to New Yorkers as the theme music for WOR-TV's late-afternoon movie program, The 4 O'Clock Movie, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The song was also used as part of a homage of The 4 O'Clock Movie in the opening logo sequence for the 2007 heist film, Ocean's Thirteen. NFL Films also used some of his compositions in its American football highlight films. His library theme "Another Happening" was used for the 2012 BBC Scotland series Britain on Film, which featured footage from the Rank Organisation's 1960s Look at Life newsreels. Richardson also orchestrated and conducted some of Richard Rodney Bennett's film music, such as for the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral and Enchanted April. He also appeared as conductor in the 1980 album A Sure Thing, featuring Bennett's arrangements of Jerome Kern songs, alongside Bennett as piano soloist and French horn player Barry Tuckwell. He was also an arranger for numerous television productions including Agatha Christie's Poirot and The Charmer.