Jerusalem

Synopsis

Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Cook star Jez Butterworth's critically acclaimed play Jersusalem, returns to the Apollo Theatre where it played a sell-out run in Spring 2010. 

A multi award-winning epic, Jerusalem is as a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. Set on St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny (Mark Rylance), a limping, caravan-dwelling ex-stuntman, all-round village rogue and modern-day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his children want their dad to take them to the fair, Troy Whitworth (Mackenzie Crook) wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of mates want his ample supply of drugs and alcohol.

In it's previous West End run, Jerusalem won the Whatsonstage.com Award for Best New Play and Mark Rylance also won the Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Circle Award. The play subsequently transferred to Broadway where he won his second The Tony Award. 

Jerusalem is directed by the Royal Court's former artistic director Ian Rickson who's most recent credits have  included Betrayal and The Children's Hour.

Mark Rylance's many stage credits include Endgame, Boeing-Boeing (for which he won his first Tony Award for Best Actor when it transferred to Broadway), True West, The Maids and numeropus roles at Shakespeare’s Globe, of which he was the founding artistic director.

Mackenzie Crook is best known for his roles in The Office and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. His stage credits incude One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the West End and The Seagull at the Royal Court. 

We have some great Jerusalem tickets so book today for what is sure to be a sell out return run of this theatrical blockbuster!

Our Review:

18 October 2011

It is a rare thing not to want something to end but so it was last night watching Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem; to say I was bedazzled just about sums it up.

Returning to the Apollo Theatre for a limited run after its massive transatlantic success, this is possibly the final chance to see Mark Rylance as Johnny 'Rooster' Byron and I think it's time to sell granny to get a ticket.

Rylance is an actor at the peak of his prowess, a quivering, swaggering behemoth. In Byron Butterworth has created for him a modern English folk legend; a protector of maidens, confessor of undesirables, Pied Piper of good hearted children and indifferent rats, this Gypsy King is as wild and dark as the woods that protect him.

Today is St George's Day and the last day Byron has left before he is evicted from the woods that bear his name by an officious Council and rather more painfully, a disgruntled community.

As we hear the strands of a local coun...

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Latest User Review

Richard Voyce - 17 January 2012:

Thought I'd better even up the statistics... Three stars, I fear. Five Star performance from Mr Rylance, but the play as a whole was pretty directionless, and could easily have had a half hour excised and not missed it. I would be astonished if anyone other than Rylance ever revives this play in its current form. Oh, and an Airstream caravan in the middle of rural Wiltshire? Eh? ...

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