Jonathan Bailey played the title role in Nicholas Hytner's staging of Shakespeare's Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, with designs by Bob Crowley.
Jonathan Bailey played Richard II at the Bridge Theatre in London Bridge from Monday 10 February to Saturday 10 May 2025. Nicholas Hytner directed, with designs by Bob Crowley.
Shakespeare wrote the play around 1595 as the opening of the Henriad. Both parts of Henry IV and then Henry V continue the sequence. Its king believes his right to rule is divinely sanctioned.
His cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, returns from banishment to claim his dead father’s estates and takes the crown. Richard is deposed and later killed at Pomfret.
The Bridge is the first theatre of the London Theatre Company, which Hytner founded with Nick Starr in 2017. It stages new commissions and the occasional classic, in a 900-seat auditorium that can be reconfigured for each production.
Bailey won an Olivier Award as Jamie in Company and had worked with Hytner before, as Cassio in Othello at the National Theatre. He came to the role after playing Fiyero in the Wicked film.
Royce Pierreson played Bolingbroke, Nick Sampson John of Gaunt and Michael Simkins the Duke of York, with Vinnie Heaven as the Duke of Aumerle.