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 the title role in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre from Monday 10 February to 10 May 2025, in a production directed by Nicholas Hytner with designs by Bob Crowley.
Shakespeare wrote the play around 1595, and it opens the Henriad, the sequence that runs on through both parts of Henry IV and Henry V. It follows a king who believes his right to rule is divinely sanctioned and the cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who takes the crown from him after returning from banishment to claim his dead father’s estates. Richard is deposed and later killed at Pomfret. The First Quarto of 1597 printed it as a tragedy, while the First Folio of 1623 placed it among the histories.
The Bridge is the first theatre run by the London Theatre Company, which Hytner founded with Nick Starr in 2017. It concentrates on new commissions and stages the occasional classic, and its 900-seat auditorium can be reconfigured production by production. Haworth Tompkins, winner of the 2014 Stirling Prize, designed the building.
Bailey, who won an Olivier Award for playing Jamie in Company, had worked with Hytner before as Cassio in Othello at the National Theatre, and had since played 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.