Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey to Play Richard II in London

Olivier Award winner and Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey will play Richard II in London. The production of Shakespeare’s play will be directed by Nicholas Hytner. Performances begin at the Bridge Theatre, flagship venue of London Theatre Company, on February 10, 2025.

Widely known for playing Anthony, Viscount Bridgerton in the Netflix Regence romance series Bridgerton, Bailey is also a regular on the London stage. He previously starred in Hytner’s production of Othello at the National Theatre and in King Lear alongside Ian McKellen, as well as in productions of The Last Five Years and Company, winning an Olivier for the latter in 2019. He plays Fiyero in the upcoming movie adaptation of Wicked.

Richard II is charismatic, eloquent and loved by his friends as well as dishonest, capricious and politically incompetent. Echoing down the centuries is the perennial problem: how to deal with a ruler who has a rock solid right to rule but is set on wrecking the country he leads. Shakespeare’s subtle, ambiguous and beautiful play finds feudal England on the cusp of modernity, as a divinely sanctioned monarch is confronted, in the figure of Henry Bolingbroke, by the hard-headed pragmatism of real authority.