Editing Richard Murdoch (section)

===Early years===
Murdoch was born on 6 April 1907 at his family's home in [[Keston]], Kent, the only son of Bernard Murdoch, a tea merchant, and his wife, Amy Florence, daughter of the [[The Venerable#Anglican|Ven]] [[Avison Scott]], [[archdeacon]] of [[Tonbridge]]. He was educated at [[Charterhouse School]] in Surrey, and [[Pembroke College, Cambridge]], which he left without taking a degree. His biographer [[Barry Took]] comments that Murdoch's appetite for a career in show business was "whetted by success with the [[Cambridge Footlights]]".<ref name=odnb/>

Murdoch made his professional stage debut in March 1927 at the [[Kings Theatre, Southsea]], in the chorus of ''The Blue Train'', a [[Edwardian musical comedy|musical comedy]] starring [[Lily Elsie]] and directed by [[Jack Hulbert]].<ref>Ashley, Audrey. "Shades of Much Binding", ''The Ottawa Citizen'', 29 September 1973, p. 33</ref> He remained in the show when it opened in the [[West End theatre|West End]] in May of that year.<ref>Gaye, p. 1000</ref> He graduated from the chorus to a supporting role in a tour of ''Oh! Letty'', a "musical farce" in which he was praised by [[Neville Cardus]] for "a stretch of distinguished dancing".<ref>Cardus, Neville. "Oh, Letty!", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 27 December 1928, p. 11</ref> In 1932 he married Peggy, daughter of William Rawlings, solicitor. They had one son and two daughters.<ref name=odnb/> During the 1930s he gained increasingly prominent roles in musicals and [[revue]]s, including the secondary romantic lead to [[Jack Buchanan]]'s star, in ''Stand up and Sing'' (1932),<ref>[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/b979634140b444e18cb05457bdb4c156 "Stand up and Sing"], ''Radio Times'', 1 April 1932, p. 48</ref> and the lead in a 1936 tour of ''[[Gay Divorce]]'' in the part played in New York and London by [[Fred Astaire]].<ref name=g1>Gaye, p. 1001</ref>

The [[BBC]] transmitted a live radio relay of ''Stand up and Sing'' in April 1932, and Murdoch was in another such relay in 1934 in an entertainment called ''Bubbles''. His first studio work for the corporation was in 1936 in a radio show called ''Tunes of the Town'', and during 1937 and early 1938 he took part in five broadcasts by the fledgling [[BBC Television]] service, including an adaptation of [[Noël Coward]]'s one-act comedy with music, ''[[Red Peppers]]'' in which he played the Coward role.<ref>[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?adv=1&order=asc&q=Richard+Murdoch#search "Richard Murdoch"], BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 June 2020</ref>