Born and raised by his lesbian mother in South East London, Rikki learned to read at the age of three and wrote his first play aged seven, moving on to direction at the age of 11. He attended the experimental Bermondsey Lampost Free School, where he could study any subject he liked and focused on theatre and film making.
Named several years running on the Independent on Sunday’s Pink List as one the 100 most influential gay people in Britain, Rikki has a life-long commitment to creating challenging, transformative entertainment in the mediums of film, theatre, music, television, radio, dance and design. He created the production company "Team Angelica" to pursue these goals and share opportunities with performers, artists and practitioners from the widest possible range of backgrounds.
Rikki wrote Stonewall for BBC Films. Directed by Nigel Finch, Stonewall went on to win the audience awards at the London Film Festival and the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay film Festival as well as an award for Rikki at Outfest LA for Outstanding Screenwriting.
Among other television projects, Rikki wrote, directed and featured in the internationally successful Channel 4 series "Metrosexuality", also composing the soundtrack.
His radio documentary, "The Roots of Homophobia" was awarded the Sony Award for Best Documentary Feature.
He was a writer and the executive story editor for the US tv series, "Noah's Arc", and was supervising director of debut films with first-time gay filmmakers as a director for the "Out in Africa" organization in South Africa.
Recently Rikki directed The short film "Souljah" by John Gordon, about a transgendered former child soldier, which won Best Film at the Rushes London Short Film Festival.
Rikki works extensively in theatre — creating 18 new plays in the last six years, including "Bashment", "Familyman", "TwothousandandSex" the stage version of "Stonewall" and most recently, "Shalom Baby" about a black man and Jewish girl who fall in love in Nazi Germany and are deported to a concentration camp.
In the last three years, Rikki has directed three successful feature films for his company Team Angelica: "Fit" about teenage sexuality and homophobic bullying which was distributed to every school in the UK and has become a phenomenon with screenings world-wide and "KickOff" a comedy about a football match between a gay and straight football team; along with several more short films, including "Gently", "7 Dials", "Thrive", "Alive", and "Butterfly" commissioned by the Royal Albert Hall.
Rikki is currently working on his next Feature film "Taken In". A thriller set in the world of homeless youth.
Rikki is also a committed mentor, regularly teaching his ‘In the Room’ career alignment course and one on one ‘Career clinic’.
His self-help books "What I Learned Today" and "Reasons to Live" are available now through Team Angelica Books.
