The television adaptation of Richard II for the Cultural Olympiad demonstrates the ways in which it looks backward to an earlier world where regal power and legitimacy were united, that is, ‘This sceptred isle,’ and at the same time it looks forward to the later world where the vision of Jerusalem is shared by means of communal communication, that is, ‘Isles of Wonder.’ The conjunction between Richard II and the Cultural Olympiad responds to the question as to how the nation is portrayed and who speaks for the nation: personal lives in cultural forces become typical of the nation’s collective memory. Their relationship enacts the mnemonic practice in keeping with a sense of nationhood. This paper examines that the BBC production of Richard II intends to remind the viewer of an area of contention in the past so as to construct a shared national identity in the present and for the future. The discussion begins with the film’s recalling of what is lost in order to deploy its foretelling of what is to come.