The Winterling

Synopsis

In rural Devon, one man in a barn is visited from two men from London, intent on dealing with some unfinished business. Only two men will leave the barn.

Our Review:

10 March 2006

Jez Butterworth burst onto the scene in 1995 with his Olivier Award-winning Mojo, set in a rock ‘n’ roll club in Fifties Soho. It was seven years before his next play, 2002’s The Night Heron, unfolded in a cottage deep in the Fens, where the characters sparred in the near-impenetrable local dialect. Now, Butterworth has returned to the Royal Court stage – under the direction once again of the outgoing artistic director Ian Rickson – with a play that falls somewhere in between those two earlier pieces, being both distinctly urban and rural at the same time.

In The Winterling, fighter planes from the nearby RAF base frequently blast by overhead the dilapidated farmhouse (design by Ultz) on Dartmoor where Robert Glenister’s West awaits a visit from two of his old London underworld associates. But the jet engines aren’t the only thing that disturb the peace. When Wally (Jerome Flynn) shows up, it’s not with old mutual mate...

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Latest User Review

213.86.133.215) - 4 April 2006:

I agree that Daniel Mays was top class. The play however was overlong and needed re-writing. ...

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