About Jonathan Hardy

Jonathan, a New Zealander, has enjoyed a distinguished theatrical career. Trained at LAMDA in the UK he was a company member of the Royal Shakespeare, the National Theatre and The White Rose Theatre companies as well as the Old Bristol Vic. Some of his performances included Seneca's Oedipus directed by Peter Brook and The Comedy Of Errors directed by Clifford Williams. On arriving in Australia in the early 70s, he first appeared at the Nimrod Theatre as Flash Jim Vaux and began a long association with the Melbourne Theatre Company appearing in The Shaughraun, Hysteria, Jumpers, Coralie Lansdowne Says No, The Diary Of A Madman, Hamlet, Breaker Morant, The Beaux Strategem, The Plough And the Stars. For two years he headed the youth wing of MTC covering much of the eastern states and he has supported many young actors, directors and writers. Other notable performances include Hancock's Last Half Hour, Twelve Angry Men, The Cripple Of Innishmaan, Death Of A Salesman, Einstein, GeilgudÕs Ages Of Man, Galileo, Great Expectations, Simpatico, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead and with Thomas Allen and Yvonne Kenny, a singing thug in Kiss Me Kate.

In the early 80s he directed the Mercury Theatre in Auckland and he also wrote for film and opera. He has had three feature films and several TV pieces produced as well as his play Jungfrau. The screenplay for Breaker Morant which he co-wrote with Bruce Beresford and David Stevens, was nominated for an Academy Award. During the late 80s Jonathan returned to the stage with the Queensland Theatre Company, then under the direction of Aubrey Mellor, and he subsequently appeared for the South Australian Theatre Company, The Black Swan Theatre and the Sydney Theatre Company. He played a nude priapic Amor in Tannhauser for the Australian Opera and for Bell Shakespeare he featured in Stephen Berkoff's Coriolanus. On television he can be seen as Rygel in Farscape with recent appearances in Stingers, MDA and The Secret Life Of Us. He has appeared in Australian films from Barry McKenzie to Moulin Rouge and Ned Kelly and in the shorts Camping With Camus, for which he won best actor, and The Gardener's Tale. Last year he was nominated for a Green Room Award for David Letch's soon to tour production of Tree Falling by Ron Elisha and he is to appear in a documentary about his pilgrimage to his father's grave at the Commonwealth War Graves at Suda Bay on Crete.

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