Award-winning actor and frequent friend to the stage, Jonathan Bailey shot to fame after his role as Lord Anthony in the popular Netflix period drama Bridgerton. With recently being starred in the critically acclaimed Showtime series Fellow Travellers and his upcoming role as the lead love interest of Check it out in the highly anticipated Wicked film, Bailey will additionally take on the title role of Shakespeare’s Richard II at the theatre.
Directed by Nicholas Hytnerthe production is set to run from February next year in London.
The play will embody the life of Richard II – a charismatic but incompetent king. The enduring question reverberates through history: how to manage a sovereign with an irrefutable claim to the throne who is bent on wrecking the realm in this case, his country, he commands.
Shakespeare’s nuanced and enigmatic play aims to captures feudal England at the brink of modernity, where a divinely ordained monarch faces the practical realism embodied by the figure of Henry Bolingbroke.
This isn’t Hytner’s first time curating a Shakespearean play at the Bridge – his previous works include ‘Julius Caesar’ (2018) and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (2019). His most recent work includes the ‘Guys & Dolls’ an immersive production at the Bridge that is currently running.
While there’s no indication of what the production will look like, Hytner has chosen more immersive production choices for his plays before, so it would come to no surprise if that was the case for his upcoming play.
Tickets will go on general sale from June 26. The brand new production of Richard II will open on February 10 in 2025 and will run till May 10 of the same year at the Bridge Theatre. You can find more information here.
Till then you can catch Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre until 04 January 2025.
