Written for Whats on Stage
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.
