Jerusalem

by Jez Butterworth

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780010151
Publisher:	Hern, Nick Books
Publication date:	04/15/2012
Series:	NHB Modern Plays
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	163 KB

About the Author

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.

Jez Butterworth is one of the UK's leading playwrights. His plays include: Mojo (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1995; West End, 2013); The Night Heron (Royal Court, 2002); The Winterling (Royal Court, 2006);  Parlour Song (Atlantic Theater, New York, 2008; Almeida Theatre, London, 2009); Jerusalem (Royal Court, 2009; West End, 2010; New York, 2011); The River (Royal Court, 2012); The Ferryman (Royal Court and West End, 2017) and The Hills of California (West End, 2024).

Mojo won the George Devine Award, the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Writers' Guild, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Playwright. Jerusalem won the Best Play Award at the Critics' Circle, Evening Standard and WhatsOnStage.com Awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. The Ferryman won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play, and the Critics' Circle, Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards for Best New Play, as well as the 2019 Tony Award for Best Play.

His screenwriting credits include Fair Game (2010), Get On Up (2014), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Black Mass (2015), Spectre (2015), Ford v Ferrari (2019), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

For TV, he created and wrote the comedy series Mammals for Amazon Studios, and created the historical fantasy drama Britannia for Sky and Amazon Prime.

In 2007, he won the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2019 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Author photo by Steve Schofield

Editorial Reviews

“An instant modern classic” – Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph

FOUR STARS: “A welcome blast of bracing fresh air. Tender, touching, and blessed with both a ribald humour and a haunting sense of the mystery of things.” – Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph

FOUR STARS: “Jerusalem is a bold, ebullient and often hilarious State-of-England or (almost) State-of-Olde-England play.” – Benedict Nightingale, The Times

“One of the most exciting new plays in ages.” – Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Magnificent… a great frame-busting play that still exists solidly within a conventional framework. Jerusalem could have been written in almost any year from the 1920s onward. Yet this work takes you places — distant, out-of-time places — that well-made plays seldom do. And it thinks big — transcendently big — in ways contemporary drama seldom dares.” – Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Jez Butterworth’s gorgeous expansive new play keeps coming at its audience in unpredictable gusts, rolling from comic to furious, from winsome to bawdy.” – Susannah Clapp, The Observer

FIVE STARS: “An invigorating, yelping, defiant portrait of 21st century shires England.” – Quentin Letts, Daily Mail

FOUR STARS: “A wonderful, rollicking, dark comedy about contemporary life in rural England.” – Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

FIVE STARS: “Hilarious and/or gripping throughout.” – Caroline McGinn, Time Out London

“Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem is one big, messy, exciting, long play.” – Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher