Jerusalem

Jez Butterworth's hugely acclaimed, prize-winning play - a comic, contemporary vision of life in England's green and pleasant land.

On St George's Day, the morning of the local country fair, Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, local waster and Lord of Misrule, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the fair, a vengeful father wants to give him a serious kicking, and a motley crew of mates wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol.

Jerusalem premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in July 2009 in a production directed by Ian Rickson and starring Mark Rylance. It transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End in January 2010, and played on Broadway in 2011.

Jez Butterworth's play won the Evening Standard Best Play Award and the Critics Circle and Whatsonstage.com awards for Best New Play.



Jez Butterworth's playwriting debut, Mojo, was staged at the Royal Court in 1995, and was acclaimed as 'one of the most dazzling Royal Court main stage debuts in years' (Time Out). Since then his plays have been premiered at the Royal Court, at the Almeida Theatre and at the Atlantic Theater in New York. Jerusalem ran for two hit seasons in the West End, as well as on Broadway. His films include Birthday Girl, Fair Game and an adaptation of Mojo.



'Unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century'



'Tender, touching, and blessed with both a ribald humour and a haunting sense of the mystery of things... one of the must-see events of the summer'



'Jez Butterworth's gorgeous, expansive new play keeps coming at its audience in unpredictable gusts, rolling from comic to furious, from winsome to bawdy'



'Storming... restores one's faith in the power of theatre'



'Show of the year'



'Arguably the best play of the 21st century so far, a work whose importance and resonance has only increased since its premiere in 2009'