Richard Osman reveals how debilitating health battle impacts 'intense' career

The Thursday Murder Club author Richard Osman has opened up about how a condition he was diagnosed with as a youngster has had a knock-on effect on his career.

While he has become a household name over the years thanks to his game show hosting success, he recently revealed how a lifelong health issue has taken its toll on his writing career.

Following his venture into writing with the release of his Thursday Murder Club novel back in 2020, he has enjoyed continued success, with more than five crime novels published since.

However, in a recent interview with Saga magazine, he shared how he has to take a somewhat different approach to others when it comes to writing his books.

Opening up about the challenges of writing his books, he said: "Compared to a lot of jobs, you wouldn't call writing 'hard', but these books are fairly big beasts and nystagmus, a condition that affects vision, means that even with large font sizes, I have to sit no more than five or six inches from the screen. It's an intense process."

While others are able to get their laptops out in all manner of different locations and start typing away, Richard revealed that he has to have a very rigid set-up at home, thanks to his condition: "Nearly all of my writing is done upstairs at the house, where I have everything set up as I want it."

According to the latest statistics, nystagmus affects around one in every 1,000 people and is usually first detected in early childhood.

Nystagmus, characterised by involuntary eye movements, is not always noticeable to others.

According to the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People): "If you have nystagmus, your eyes are always moving, although it may not always be obvious to you or others."

They added: "The way that nystagmus affects vision varies from person to person; however, it doesn't lead to total loss of sight."

Despite his eye condition, Richard has managed to pen a whopping five books in the Thursday Murder Club series, with the latest in the collection, The Impossible Fortune, released across bookshops earlier this week (Thursday, 25 September).

While his books have received best-selling status over the years, The Thursday Murder Club was recently released for a limited run in cinemas before it began streaming on Netflix. At one point, it held the number one spot on the streaming platform.

Richard will be back on our screens this morning on Saturday Kitchen, where he will be joined by Matt Tebbutt, Philip Khoury and Rukmini Iyer at 10 a.m. on BBC One.