Richard Lett

In 2013, Lett entered the world of competitive slam poetry under the moniker "Optimus Rhyme". He won the 2013 Toronto Grand Slam Championship and led his Toronto Poetry Slam to win the 2013 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. The team represented Canada in the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 2010, Lett began doing stand-up comedy in support of drug and alcohol recovery. He has since performed at over 100 recovery conventions, treatment centres and 12-step fundraisers. He received a "Word of Mouth" grant from the Ontario Arts Council in 2014, which supported his work on his solo show Sober But Never Clean. The autobiographical show "played to sold-out crowds". Lett's comedy show, One Nut Only, tells the story of his battle with testicular cancer. After surviving addiction, cancer and COVID-19, Richard wrote and performed Hard2Kill at the 2020 Vancouver Fringe Festival.

In his early career, Lett was often described as "Canada's George Carlin". He was known for his divisive, controversial, and sometimes obscene shows. In 2009, Lett was banned from comedy clubs across Canada due to his increasingly abusive behaviour fuelled by his alcohol and drug addiction. Lett was the focus of the biographical movie Never Be Done: The Richard Glen Lett Story, which follows Lett's journey from addiction to rehab to recovery. The film won Best Documentary Feature at the Hollywood South Film Festival.

Lett began a career in stand-up comedy in the 1980s touring nationally for Yuk Yuk's. Lett has opened for Trailer Park Boys actors Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay, and Mike Smith and singer Michael Bublé.