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Richard Stilgoe, OBE, is a songwriter, lyricist and musician. He was born in Surrey in 1943 and attended Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights.

He is well-known as a comic musician and for his love of wordplay. He has appeared on the quiz show Countdown over two hundred times and has two Tony nominations, three Monte Carlo Prizes, a Prix Italia, an honorary doctorate and an OBE to his name. He collaborated on the lyrics to The Phantom of the Opera and wrote those to Starlight Express. He donated all his royalties from Starlight Express to a village in India – such was the musical’s success that for some years the donations exceeded £500 a day. He founded the Orpheus Trust in 1998, based in a previous family home in Godstone, Surrey, offering performing arts experience to young people with various disabilities, as well as the Stilgoe Family Concerts series at the Royal Festival Hall, which feature young performers and regular commissions of new music.

He was High Sheriff of Surrey in 1998-99 and is currently President of Surrey County Cricket Club.