Richard Philip Edwards is an English journalist and presenter. Edwards presented T4 for four years, and has also presented Tool Academy, Freshly Squeezed, E4 Music and much of Channel 4's 2012 Paralympics coverage.
Edwards hosted a Saturday evening radio show on XFM entitled The Weekender for several years, hosting his last show on 10 January 2009. He also formed part of the BBC presenting team for their coverage of the Reading and Leeds Festival. In 2011 Edwards began hosting E4's Tool Academy, a reality TV show about fed-up girlfriends who have enrolled their underperforming other halves in a school in which "tools become men". During the 2012 Paralympics, Edwards formed part of the Channel 4 commentary team as well as co-presenting That Paralympic Show with Ade Adepitan. In 2013, Edwards began co-presenting political discussion show Free Speech for BBC Three alongside Tina Daheley. During the 2015 general election, they presented a series of Free Speech specials. In July 2015, Edwards began presenting ITV2 panel show, Safeword which returned for a second series in 2016. Edwards currently hosts the podcast Science alongside Dr Michael Brooks which delves into the science behind popular films. The series proved such a hit that the duo were commissioned by Atlantic to write a book of the same name, Science: The Peculiar Science Behind The Movies, which was published in October 2017 and ranked number 1 in the Physics, Cosmology and Humorous Essays Amazon charts for several weeks as well as achieving a position of 21 in the overall book charts. The podcast itself has topped the iTunes Science & Medicine chart. In March 2016, Edwards landed the anchor role on Sky's DC Fancast alongside Bec Hill. He claims this is a true highlight of his career. In January 2017, Edwards began presenting !mpossible, a daytime BBC Onequiz show. As a writer, his original film Burger Van Champion was commissioned as part of C4’s Coming Up strand in 2013 and was described by the Observer as ‘a remarkable debut’ and by Time Out as ‘funny, touching superbly written’. From March 2019, Edwards costarred in History's miniseries River Hunters, alongside YouTuber and river-hunter Beau Ouimette.
Personal life
Edwards has said that he has a very poor sense of smell due to sniffing pure ammonia while in school. Edwards supported green organisation Global Cool in 2010 as part of their Traincation campaign, along with his friend George Lamb. Edwards married EastEnders and Father Brown actress Emer Kenny in 2016.
