Mark Rylance and J Smith-Cameron to star in Juno and the Paycock in the West End

Mark Rylance (Jerusalem, Dr Semmelweiss) will return to the stage alongside Succession star J Smith-Cameron for a new revival of Juno and the Paycock.

Sean O’Casey’s 1924 play, which follows a tenement-dwelling, working-class Dublin family who are suddenly set to gain a large inheritance, was turned into a film in 1930 by Alfred Hitchcock.

Matthew Warchus, artistic director of the Old Vic, will now helm this new production, which will open at the Gielgud Theatre on 21 September.

Warchus said today: “I have long been in love with this staggeringly great melodrama – a play which collides an Irish working-class domestic tragedy with some of the comedic bravura of the 1920s Music Hall in an unforgettable indictment of the chaos of civil war.

“I’m very excited to be embarking on my seventh collaboration with Mark Rylance, and my first with the brilliant American actress J. Smith-Cameron, on the 100-year anniversary production of this internationally acclaimed, strikingly relevant, Irish classic.”

Smith-Cameron added: “Juno and the Paycock is not simply a brilliant piece of theatre but an eternally relevant play so long as people must endure violent repression. The prospect of revisiting this work in the company of the great director Matthew Warchus and the truly legendary Mark Rylance absolutely floors me; I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

The creative team includes Rob Howell (set and costume designer), Hugh Vanstone (lighting designer), Claire van Kampen (composer) and Serena Hill CDG (casting director). Further company members are to be revealed.

Rylance concluded:, “It is a joy to be playing Seán O’Casey’s masterpiece with J Smith-Cameron, and to be doing so in its 100th anniversary year. I am also delighted to be reuniting with Matthew Warchus on what will be our seventh theatrical collaboration and with Sonia Friedman who has supported me in eight previous productions.”

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