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RichardCadell2011

Richard Cadell has been in charge of the Sooty franchise since Matthew Corbett retired in 1998.

Biography[]

Richard Cadell had been a fan of Sooty ever since he was a small boy. He had his own Sooty and Sweep puppets with which he used to put on his own Sooty shows from home. This he has since considered the reason why the Sooty franshise is so appealing, In a 2023 interview with the Radio Times, he stated that "The wonderful thing is that people can do it in their own home. The Muppets are wonderful, but they're complex."

When he was 15, Richard entered the Magic Circle's Young Magician of the Year competition and won. Part of the prize was to go on The Sooty Show and show Sooty a magic trick, which he did in the episode, Sooty's Busy Christmas. At this point, he could not help professing his love for Sooty in the studio.

Fifteen years later, Matthew Corbett was planning to retire. After a gruelling audition process and co-presenting the later episodes of Sooty & Co., Richard Cadell cried his eyes out when he got the job. In his first full run with Sooty, he co-presented the series Sooty Heights with Liana Bridges which evolved into just being titled Sooty with Vicki Lee Taylor. During this time, Matthew Corbett had sold the licensing rights to HiT Entertainment, which tried to make Sooty a global success. Richard felt they had lost the essence of The Sooty Show, so in 2008, he convinced his brother they had to buy the rights to Sooty. "Maybe Sooty, Sweep and Soo wouldn't be here today if we hadn't taken a huge risk," he said "artistically and financially in a deal reported to be worth £1000,000. I flipped it back to how the Corbetts did it. I write new scripts, but still do some of Harry's routines verbatim."

He has made a direct-to-DVD feature length Sooty episode called The Big Day Out, which was released September 2009. He went on to write, present and act as executive producer on the 2011 series of Sooty. He is also the current voice of Kipper the Cat, Butch, and Ramsbottom. He also provided the voice of the announcer at the go-kart race in the episode, The Great Race.

In a 2012 interview with the Daily Mail, Richard stated that he intends to keep the rights to Sooty for as long as possible. In the 2023 interview for the Radio Times, he stated that he loves Sooty, Sweep and Soo like children. "They are family to me. I see myself as a guardian of these three little things. I hope that when my time is over, somebody will love them, look after them and keep them alive."

Episodes Written[]

All episodes in Series 1 were co-written with Alex Skerratt and Wink Taylor

Trivia[]

  • He has a sister, actress Helen Pearson, and a brother, David who features in the series as a cameo.
  • In 2017, he and Sooty appeared on the BBC games show "Pointless Celebrities" where they read out a selection of questions on children's television, including "which member of the royal family did Sooty squirted in 1955 (Prince Philip). After this Sooty squirted the host, Alexander Armstrong with his water pistol.
  • In 2019, he with Sooty and Debbie McGee went to the Rays of Sunshine event at Evelina Children's Hospital in London and took on Joe Pasquale and Paul Zerdin with Sam in a "Children in Need" special of "Bargain Hunt". Later that year, Richard and Sooty teamed up with Debbie McGee again for that year's Christmas special of "Pointless Celebrities"; Paul Zerdin and Faye Tozer were also contestants.
  • Harry Corbett had six subsequent Sootys since the original wore out, one of which Richard now owns.
  • Richard has kept the thousands of Sooty props and costumes made over the years, including miniature wigs, hats and musical instruments. He has catalogued them and they take up eight or nine storage boxes.

Gallery[]

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