Richard Doubleday

Richard is a seasoned performer of Stage, Television and Film. His interest in playing music started at an early age when his mum introduced a piano to the household. Having taken piano lessons at the age of nine followed by music at school he soon added guitar and drums to his multi-instrumentalist abilities and his love for music grew.

Richard’s main musical influences would have to include: Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Abba, ELO, Queen, Spandau Ballet, Sting and anything with Trevor Horn, Nile Rogers and Quincy Jones names attached. One of his earliest musical memories is watching Abba win the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. The first single he bought was Mamma Mia.

Ricard is an accomplished actor. He trained at The Guildford School of Acting and began to carve out an acting career after deciding being a carpenter was not for him. After three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company and many provincial Theatres around the UK, he was cast in the West End production of ‘From A Jack to a King’. This was the forerunner of Bob Carlton’s ‘Return to the Forbidden Planet’ and enjoyed a 1 year run in the West End. This led to taking on more actor/musician roles. From 1997 to 2002 he toured extensively with Bill Kenwright’s No. 1 UK tour of ‘The Roy Orbison Story’.

It was on this tour whilst performing at the Grand Opera House, Belfast he met his future wife, Karen. Both were living and working in London at that time, but once they were married and had started a family decided to make the move to Karen’s birth-place, Northern Ireland. Both had a long-standing aspirations to create an authentic tribute to Abba combining their talents perfectly as singer, actor, musicians. This idea was formulated way back in 2009 as was the tribute bands name! and after resettling in Belfast and their 2^nd child born in 2011 The Bjorn Identity was bjorn.

“Celebrating the genius of Abba is one of the hardest tributes to get right on so many levels. We believe in bringing peoples natural talents and abilities to the fore. Here in 2023 we feel the band is populated with the very best musicians, technicians and integrated talent that the UK has to offer in this field. We’ve been lucky enough to tour The Bjorn Identity as far afield as Germany, Austria, Greece and Malta as all over the Island of Ireland and long it continue to grow and move forward”