The story behind the best British play ever: a ThinkIn with Jez Butterworth

Since its original 2009 production, Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth has been repeatedly hailed as one of the greatest theatrical works of the century.
This examination of English identity and rural life through the story of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, is fuelled by hedonism, defiance, a lot of swearing and a catalogue of tall tales.
As Mark Rylance returns to his career-defining role as Rooster Byron in the long-awaited revival of Jerusalem, join us for a very special ThinkIn with Jez Butterworth where we’ll explore how this masterwork is still relevant today, and what it says about modern Britain. What would Rooster make of a post-Brexit UK, preoccupied with covid, culture wars and partying politicians? Is he the anti-hero we need now more than ever?
Editor:
James Harding
Co-Founder and Editor
Invited guest:
Jez Butterworth
Award-winning Playwright, Screenwriter, and Film Director
Tuesday 19 April

[@carolynmcgrath9900]

Saw it last night and now have to read it. One line is echoing round my head - ‘What do you think an English forest is for?’

[@nessuno6110]

For bands of Merry Men to gather and FroliCK...

[@carolynkimbrey1423]

We thought same!

[@rebeccasmiles1]

It's a shame a lot of the questions focused around politics, even after his assertion that it wasn't his intention. Questions that were never asked and seemed so much more important; about the mythological proportions and the magical in the play. How they came to be part of it, what was his relationship with that. It's something that deeply resonates with me, in relationship to the land.

[@Auriflamme]

Everything is political though, whether people intend it to be or not.

[@TimothyJonSarris]

Love this

[@lucyt6971]

Jez Butterworth may not have known Micky Lay, and admits he only met him twice. Mark Rylance took his inspiration from Micky, he went to the lengths of meeting him, and getting to know him, he got to know his family, and spent time in the village, and the Tony Award he received for his performance is on the mantlepiece of Mick Lay's eldest daughter.

[@Eudaimonia88]

Well, the play and indeed the character have nothing to with Micky Lay. As Jez himself says in the video. Mark Rylance may have drawn inspiration from him for the character, but this play is not about him.

[@DanteCorwyn]

Is there any chance there will be a broadcast or recording of the play? I've got no way of watching it live (I don't live anywhere near London).

[@pamelamontanaro2262]

I was able to watch a well-made DVD of it at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Library. i just made an appointment to view it using a NY library card. It's the British cast. It is fabulous!!! Surely there is a similar place in London to view videotaped plays.

[@edblair929]

Is this play on anywhere? Signed The Good Doctor

[@kimberleyadams3230]

The Apollo theatre Shaftesbury Ave

[@edblair929]

Is the play on anywhere now. The Good Dr

[@NicholasWarnertheFirst]

yes the Apollo theatre in London's Eest End. Sold out for next month unless you have 145 quid ?

[@TimeTraveller29]

Yes, turn up on the day, there are always returns. Ticket cheaper too. Don't miss it. Utterly extraordinary

[@edblair929]

@@TimeTraveller29 . I used to have the odd Beverage with Jez many years ago. So I would love to see this. I hear it is stunning. thank you

[@TimeTraveller29]

@@edblair929 it the experience of a lifetime. I've seen twice. It's a masterpiece

[@raspberryberet4544]

Overrated, it's shallow, trivial and obvious.

[@carltaylor6452]

When it comes to the 'somewheres' and the 'nowheres' - as the character Davey articulates - I'm a somewhere. The interviewer, and perhaps now Butterworth himself, are nowheres, it sounds. The play was first performed a good seven years before the Brexit vote - although that movement had long been brewing - and I'm glad that Butterworth is reluctant to retrospectively assign a definitive 'meaning' to it. I have a deep suspicion of the nowheres: they have little or no attachment to English culture, they tend not to live long-term in the working-class communities that have very little (although they tend to have hedonist tales of their squatting days before they escaped),; working-class communities that are expected to share what little they have with migrants who have even less. The nowheres will decry insensitive property development - aligning themselves with the somewheres who are invariably pushed out by it; but will virtue-signal their antipathy to any measures to control said migration so long as it doesn't impact the areas in which they live (or which they can easily move away from). Hypocrisy is rife within England's middle-classes. I love the play. I love its ambiguity. I don't really want to know whether its author now supports Remain or is opposed to attempts to solve an intractable migrant crisis. I have no respect for those kinds of fantasists; give me the Byron kind of fantasists over them any day.

[@carolynmcgrath9900]

Funniest tragedy ever.