The Two Rhaegars — Natalie Bochenski

Of all the strange and wonderful coincidences of my life, this one ranks right up there.

When Game of Thrones: The Mad King was announced in early 2026, I knew immediately I had to go. I felt it in my soul.

I had two weeks to work with, and soon built up a solid plan around seeing the show twice at the Royal Shakespeare Company, plus visiting and catching up with as many UK family members and friends as possible.

I arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon in the afternoon of Wednesday 27 August. I checked into the utterly charming Tudor-style Hotel Indigo, then went for a brief walk to stretch my legs. Then I treated myself to a luxurious hotel shower and got ready for Night 1 of The Mad King.

It was only a short stroll to the RSC complex, and I arrived already buzzing with excitement. I saw the merch stand inside the RSC shop and immediately queued up to buy a souvenir T-shirt. It’s dead plain, ridiculously expensive for a t-shirt, and I’ll probably be too nervous to ever wear it - but I had to have it.

I made my way to my seat, which for that first performance was in the front row of one of the quadrants that made up the stalls. The whole main theatre had been redesigned for The Mad King, creating a cross-shaped stage with an impressive arch soaring over the shorter arm.

I got talking to the blonde woman next to me - our very front seats were the only two in our section - and she turned out to be even more committed that me. Fran was from Uruguay and had flown over to see the show FIVE times in total. She’d seen it the night before, and the matinee that day.

It turned out Fran had started a fan account on Twitter for the play after failing to find a central place for information about it. Her account had garnered several thousand followers, and had a few posts go viral. In the 15 or so minutes before the show began, I discovered she was much more of a book purist that I am, and had a much deeper knowledge of the lore of Ice and Fire.

Somehow I’d landed my very own expert to help maximise my show experience!

I’ll write about the show itself in more detail in my upcoming recap, but suffice to say that first experience of it was breathtakingly fantastic.

At interval, Fran and I didn’t even leave our seats (in our defence, they were very comfortable with lots of legroom; very different from the circle seat I would have the following night!), and I sent a voicemail to my partner Greg that was half theatre criticism, half deranged love letter, and 100% joyous. I believe I said the phrase “I don’t want to leave; I live here now” several times.

The first half of the show concerns the infamous Tourney at Harrenhal; the second half is Robert’s Rebellion. It’s an extraordinary amount of content covered in a four hour show; but it flew by. I was enraptured by the huge, talented cast, the beautiful dialogue, the moments of shock and revelation, and of course the brilliant staging, which included stunning puppetry (knights, horses and more) and the beautiful weirwood tree and Iron Throne set pieces.

After the show, Fran generously gave me her spare program (I’d been so fixated on that t-shirt I hadn’t even thought about a program!) and told me to follow her around to the stage door. I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do that on my own, but Fran had already done it twice.

It turned out that she was running a fan art project from her fan account. She’d encouraged people to send her fan art, letters, basically anything they were keen to give to the actors to express their love of the characters and to thank them for bringing them to life. Fran was printing all this stuff out and making little personalised kits for the actors. So she hit up the stage door after each show to try to catch them.

It was an incredibly sweet gesture of love and thanks from fans around the world, all co-ordinated by Fran. It was so touching to see the actors genuinely chuffed to receive these gifts, no doubt feeling the magnitude of how much fans love the books and the wider franchise. They all graciously signed

Which brings me to my first Rhaegar.

Regular readers of my recaps will know my undying devotion to the character of Jon Snow.

Note: SPOILERS if you haven’t seen GoT, read the books, engaged in any of the franchise, and still want to be surprised!

Jon Snow is raised as Ned Stark’s bastard son, but the identity of his mother remains a mystery in much of the show (and of course in the books, which are still yet to conclude the story). However it was eventually revealed that Jon Snow is actually the son of Ned’s sister Lyanna Stark, and his father was Rhaegar Targaryen, the Crown Prince of Westeros. The pair had married in secret, making Jon the true heir to the Seven Kingdoms.

So it’s probably no surprise that I immediately adored Rhaegar in the show. Here was a character only seen briefly in a flashback in Game of Thrones, only ever talked about in hushed tones.

He is one of the main characters in The Mad King, and he was superbly brought to life by actor Noah Ritter. His first spoken lines are actually a song, and he sings it beautifully. Forget Lyanna being brought to tears by his song; I was prepared to swear allegiance right there and then. He also suits the Targaryen silver hair, and his costume with elements of black leather is… chef’s kiss.

*Official* The Mad King *photo by Johan Persson.*

I was delighted to chat to a number of the actors that night about the show, explaining how I thought I was committed coming from Australia, but had been outshone by the wonderful Fran. I remember telling several of them how exciting it was to spend time with these characters we’d only ever heard about, such as Lyanna Stark, Elia Martell, and King Aerys, or characters we knew as older people, such as Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon, Barristan Selmy and Jaime Lannister.

I was trying to be respectful and not ask for photos, given how long the show was and how much energy and focus it took, and how exhausted they probably were. However, I simply HAD to ask Noah Ritter - Prince Rhaegar - for a picture. I explained it was totally fine if he wasn’t up to it, but he graciously agreed.

And so I got a picture with my first Rhaegar Targaryen.

I saw the show a second time the next night, delighting at the different angles the high circle seat afforded me, then continued on with my trip (albeit wishing I’d thought like Fran and bought more tickets).

A week later I was back in London to spend time with my close friends Deborah Frances-White and Tom Salinsky. Deb hosts an incredibly successful podcast called The Guilty Feminist; both she and Tom have written books and plays. You may also know Tom from many episodes of the Raven On podcast; he guested several times on James Bond and Doctor Who episodes, and did all of House of the Dragon S2 with me. They’re an all round creative power couple, and I’m always so delighted to spend time with them.

I hadn’t booked any shows for my last few days in London, figuring there’s always going to be something to see, and wanting to leave options open to hang out with Deb and Tom. On the night of Thursday 3 September, Deb arranged tickets for us to go to the opening night of The Story at the National Theatre. It’s an American play about journalism and race, with a few more twists and turns about identity and history than I was expecting!

At interval, Deb was looking at the cast list, trying to work out where she knew one of the actors from. Eventually she passed her phone to me and said “Yes, Wilf Scolding… look, Nat, he was in Game of Thrones.”

I looked at the filmography she’d pulled up and did a double take.

“Deb - he was RHAEGAR TARGARYEN in Game of Thrones!”

Now Deb, bless her, hasn’t seen Game of Thrones. And hey, look, she’s always telling me to watch Mad Men, which I still haven’t seen. There’s a lot of TV out there, you can’t watch it all.

But yes, Wilf did play Rhaegar Targaryen in a flashback at the end of series 7, which sees Bran doing his Three-Eyed Raven thing to confirm Sam’s information that Rhaegar and Lyanna married, making Jon the legitimate Aegon Targaryen. While it may have been a brief appearance, Wilf’s face is still all over fan Wikis and YouTube deep dives as Rhaegar.

Deb was trying to remember how she knew Wilf Scolding, and at the post-show drinks she finally worked it out - she knew his partner, a musician. So she was able to grab him and introduce him to me as her Australian theatremaker friend (very kind of her!) and a mad Game of Thrones fan.

Wilf was absolutely charming and affable, and when I told him that the driver for my trip was to see The Mad King at the RSC, he joked “I hear some other bugger’s playing my part!”

And that’s how I got a picture with my second Rhaegar Targaryen.

As far as I know, there’s only been two actors who’ve played that role - one on the TV show, and one on stage. And I got photos with both of them on the same trip!

I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have met these talented actors, both brilliant in the stage shows I saw them in.

More on the show and my very special backstage tour in coming posts. Thank you so much for reading, and a particular thank you to all of my Patreon supporters, without whom I couldn’t do this.