Writer: Jez Butterworth
Director: Jonathan Reed
Jerusalem is a monstrous, Hydra-headed, wonder of a play. It requires a towering central performance and an ensemble that acts like a Greek chorus, that ebbs and flows like the River Severn, that allows the play to simultaneously portray a sad static Traveller who gives a mob of kids drugs and booze, and a mythic archetype, a Lord of Misrule, Jack o’the Green, Puck. If either of these stories fails to connect, it becomes a sort of morality tale without any moral. Both strands have to be credible.
It is enormously to the credit of the Tower Theatre’s young company that they pull it off, by and large. In the lead role of Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, Giles Fouhy is a convincing ageing crusty, living in a trailer that’s been parked up so long it has become part of the undergrowth. He manages the transitions into a tale teller with his roots in legend with considerable grace – funny, chatty, friend to the ancient giants of Albion. When he challenges his rat pack to beat on the djembe that will summon all the giants to Rooster’s aid, everyone thinks he’s probably having a laugh, but maybe he really is in touch with the spirits of ancient days.
The gang of wasters who hang around the trailer are also convincing, with particular plaudits for Morgan Buckley as Lee, a waif-like dreamer bound for far horizons but not at all sure he can manage. He is naïve and anxious and still has more energy than all his mates. Liam Stewart is Davey, playing a contrasting grounded soul, not just a West Countryman, but an exclusively Wiltshire resident, bitterly complaining when the local news mentions Wales or Bristol. Local means Wiltshire. Martin Shaw is excellent as Wesley, a publican instructed by corporate landlords to invent folk traditions and wallow in soul-sucking inadequacy. In a small but powerful cameo, Ben Mulhern brings genuine menace and nastiness to the thuggish Troy, who relishes getting rid of Rooster to erase his own youthful indiscretions.
Rob Hebblethwaite and Sophie Clark have designed a convincing trailer park-cum-drug-den-cum-scrap-yard, and Kate Els’ costumes are wondrous. The moment when an elfin character spreads her gauzy wings, and they burst into life with dozens of little lights, is a particularly splendid effect, and she dresses the others with effective scuzzy strangeness.
The Tower Theatre and director Jonathan Reed have taken on a very challenging play and made it work. The combined essence of Gog and Magog and copious amounts of skunk and Special Brew can be tasted next to Stoke Newington Common. It’s a heady mixture, but illuminating.
Runs until 9 May 2026 and then in Brighton in June
