Jerusalem Returns to West End with Rylance, 17 Oct

As previously tipped, Jez Butterworth‘s acclaimed play Jerusalem will return to the London stage this autumn following its Tony Award-winning run on Broadway. The show returns to the West End’s Apollo Theatre where it played a sell-out run in Spring 2010, from 17 October (previews from 8 October 2011).

Tickets for Jerusalem are on sale from today (10 July 2011) and are available from Whatsonstage.com. Click here to book Jerusalem tickets.

Jerusalem won the Whatsonstage.com Award for Best New Play with Mark Rylance also picking up Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards for his portrayal of Johnny Byron, a limping, caravan-dwelling ex-stuntman, all-round village rogue and modern-day Pied Piper.

The multi award-winning epic is billed 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 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.

The production transferred into the West End following a Summer 2009 run at the Royal Court, and is directed by the Court’s former artistic director Ian Rickson. His recent West End credits have also included star-laden revivals of Betrayal and The Children’s Hour.

Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook, who have both been with the production since its Royal Court debut, have been confirmed for the new West End company. It has also been announced that the 2011 West End cast will also include Max Baker (Wesley), Alan David (The Professor), Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Phaedra), Johnny Flynn (Lee), Geraldine Hughes (Dawn), Danny Kirrane (Davey), Charlotte Mills (Tanya), Sarah Moyle (Ms Fawcett) and Harvey Robinson (Mr Parsons).

Prior to Jerusalem, Rylance starred as Hamm in Complicite’s production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. Amongst his many other stage credits are Boeing-Boeing (for which he won a Tony Award for Best Actor when it transferred to Broadway), True West, The Maids and myriad roles at Shakespeare’s Globe, where he was the founding artistic director.

Best known for his screen roles in The Office and the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Mackenzie Crook has appeared on stage in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Exonerated and, at the Royal Court, The Seagull.

Director Ian Rickson also helmed Jez Butterworth’s The Winterling, The Night Heron and his multi award-winning 1995 debut play Mojo, all at the Court, as well as the European premiere of Butterworth’s Parlour Song at the Almeida.

The re-mounted West End production has design by Ultz, lighting design by Mimi Jordan Sherin, sound design by Ian Dickinson for Autograph and composition by Stephen Warbeck.

The production is booking for a “strictly limited 14-week season” until 14 January 2012. Jerusalem is produced in the West End by Royal Court Theatre Productions and by Sonia Friedman Productions