Tony Jayawardena

Tony Jayawardena
Born	Anthony Surath Jayawardena London, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2003–present

Anthony Surath Jayawardena is a British actor, known for his roles as Mr Bhamra in the West End musical Bend It Like Beckham the Musical ^[1] and for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe ^[2] and Royal National Theatre. In 2018, he began portraying the role of Rashid Hyatt in the Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge .

Career

Jayawardena appears on the original cast recording of Bend It Like Beckham the Musical , performing the songs "People Like Us" and "The Engagement: Look At Us Now". ^[3] He was the original Abdul Kareem in the play The Empress by Tanika Gupta, which tells the story of Queen Victoria's relationship with The Munshi, a young man brought over from India to be her servant in the final 15 years of her life. He played Stephano in the RSC's production of The Tempest , ^[4] which partnered with Intel and Imaginarium Studios and was the first use of real-time motion-capture technology on stage. ^[5]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Director
2004	Chasing Liberty	White House Guard	Andy Cadiff
2008	A Bunch of Amateurs	Kevin Patel
2009	National Theatre Live: All's Well That Ends Well	2nd Lord Dumaine	Marianne Elliot
2010	National Theatre Live: London Assurance	Mark Meddle	Nicholas Hytner
2011	Screwed	Bear	Reg Traviss
2012	Tower Block	Bear	Ronnie Thompson, Eddie
2013	Trance	Security Guard	Danny Boyle
2016	A Street Cat Named Bob	Tony	Roger Spottiswoode

Television

Year	Program	Role	Episode
2011	Kabaddasses	The Marauding Moustache	1 [6]
2012	Silent Witness	Younis	2 episodes
2016	The Windsors	Sandy	Series 1 [7]
	Holby City	Monty the Python	Series 19, episode 10
2018	The Tunnel	Lawrence Taylor	2 episodes [7]
2018–2022	Ackley Bridge	Rashid Hyatt	Main role [7]
2020	The Crown	Sir Sonny Ramphal	2 episodes
2022	Avoidance	Keith
TBA	Doctor Jekyll	Malcolm	Post-production

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Company
2009	England People Very Nice	Various	Royal National Theatre
	Twelfth Night	Fabian	The Royal Shakespeare Company [7]
	All's Well That Ends Well	2nd Lord Dumaine	Royal National Theatre [7]
2010	London Assurance	Mark Meddle
2013	The Empress	Abdul Kareem	Royal Shakespeare Company
	Love N Stuff	Mansoor	Theatre Royal Stratford East
2015	Bend It Like Beckham the Musical	Mr Bhamra	Phoenix Theatre [7]
2016	The Invisible Hand	Imam Saleem	Tricycle Theatre [8] [9]
	The Tempest	Stephano	Royal Shakespeare Company [7]
2017	Twelfth Night	Sir Toby Belch	Shakespeare's Globe
	Lions and Tigers	Subhash Bose / Jyotish Gupta	Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
	Young Marx	Gert “Doc” Schmidt	Bridge Theatre
2019	Hobson's Choice	Hari Hobson	Royal Exchange Theatre
2021	East is East	Zahir "George" Khan	Birmingham Repertory Theatre
2024	Nye	Winston Churchill / Doctor Dain	Royal National Theatre
	Dr. Strangelove	Russian Ambassador Bakov	Noël Coward Theatre

Discography

Year	Album	Role	Label
2015	Bend It Like Beckham the Musical	Mr Bhamra	Sony Music Classical

References

1. "Tony Jayawardena and Natasha Jayetileke, Ashanti Omkar - BBC Asian Network". BBC. Archived from the original on 10 November 2017.
2. Adams, Tim (28 May 2017). "Twelfth Night review – Emma Rice brings lights, music and the food of life". Archived from the original on 11 September 2017 – via www.theguardian.com.
3. Cavendish, Dominic (24 June 2015). "Bend It Like Beckham, Phoenix Theatre, review: 'irresistible'". Archived from the original on 10 November 2017 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
4. "The Tempest". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
5. "Tech comes to The Tempest in new RSC production". 18 November 2016. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017.
6. "Comedy Lab - On Demand - All 4". www.channel4.com. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016.
7. "Meet the cast of Channel 4 school drama Ackley Bridge - 2". radiotimes.com. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
8. "Interview with Tony Jayawardena from the cast of The Invisible Hand". 3 May 2016. Archived from the original on 10 November 2017.
9. "5 minutes with: Tony Jayawardena - 'The West End is a difficult arena to succeed in'". Archived from the original on 29 May 2016.

External links

• Tony Jayawardena at IMDb