Jon Richardson’s turn as Darius Donovan, a new media studies teacher at Waterloo Road high school, has been deliciously devilish, with his underhand, manipulative tactics resulting in the death of a student and the defeat of his enemies, Marc Todd (Tom Wells) and Jack Rimmer (Jason Merrells).
Off-screen, though, his role as the devious new villain of the BBC soap has helped him get over his divorce from fellow comedian, Lucy Beaumont.
After nearly ten years of marriage and their own sitcom, Meet The Richardsons, the couple announced their divorce last year.
‘After nine years of marriage, we would like to announce that we have separated,
‘We have jointly and amicably made the difficult decision to divorce and go our separate ways. As our only priority is managing this difficult transition for our daughter, we would ask that our privacy is respected at this sensitive time to protect her well-being.
‘We will be making no further comment’ they each posted on Instagram.
Jon described his struggle with where to take his career next as both his marriage and their sitcom came to an end on the Scarred For Life podcast. while delving into his thoughts on playing a villain.
‘We did five series of sitcom called Meet The Richardsons, which is sort of acting of us all, but it’s me playing me doing things I’ve done. So I came out of that still not knowing if I could act or not.
‘Then I had quite a spicy 2024, where I had to make some changes in my life. I didn’t feel particularly funny at the start of 2024, to be honest, and I didn’t want to tour because I thought, well, anything I say is going to get taken out of context. I didn’t want to be away a lot.’
‘Waterloo Road is a pivot. I hope it’s not me pivoting towards a fire door!’ he laughed.
When asked what how he found himself in the position to take the role, he said: ‘So I said to my agent, ‘can I go on Spotlight and just see if anything turns up?’ Thinking it might be a cameo in a sitcom episode or something like that. Within a few weeks Waterloo Road came in and said, ‘they’re looking for a guy about your age from about where you are.’
Describing the process of securing the role, Jon said: ‘So it was just a self-tape. At that point, I thought, ‘well, I’ve got nothing to lose by doing a self-tape.’
‘Having said that, it took me two weeks to send it in because every time I did it, I thought it was terrible. So I do one and then retake it…I just couldn’t bear to watch myself troll through these lines.
‘Eventually I sent it in and then off the back of that was asked to do a live read with the production team and another cast member reading the lines. And then I got it. It came in so quick, before I knew it, I was off on set. We started filming just a few weeks after that.’
As previously stated, Darius isn’t the type of guy you’d want to work alongside. His first appearances saw him carelessly drop a bag of drugs he was using on the school premises, later framing Marc Todd for bringing them into school.
He was later indirectly responsible for the death of Faith Drake (Savannah Kunyo). When she catches him in a compromising position, he chases her, knocking over a plate of non-dairy cupcakes. Hastily throwing them back on a plate, he mixes them with the dairy ones.
Faith later ate a dairy cupcake and went into anaphylactic shock due to her dairy allergy, sadly perishing. Rather than try and put things right, Darius went to great lengths to cover what he’d done.
He later entered into a bitter feud with school counsellor Jack Rimmer. In retaliation for Jack recommending Darius be passed over for promotion, the schemer placed a bottle of whiskey in Jack’s office, knowing of his past with alcoholism. When their beef became violent, Jack was fired, while Darius was awarded the deputy head position.
How does Jon feel about portraying such a scum bag? ‘Darius, the character I play, part of the reason I took it is he’s so unlike anyone I’ve ever been compared to. I mean, he’s an absolute rotter. So if I went back to my school days, it was only to say, ‘Well, what teacher would I have least wanted to be around?’
‘I think if there was a teacher even remotely like Darius in schools, they would have got their comeuppance long before I got to know them. I mean, he’s an absolute rotter. He’s more like a film villain or something
‘He’s such a joy to play.’