As the acclaimed Jerusalem heads back to the West End, Catherine Love looks at some of the other plays that have taken inspiration from the countryside.
Nothing ever happens in the country, right? Wrong. Jerusalem, the Jez Butterworth play that received rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, shows another side to rural Britain, as Johnny Byron and his cohorts raise hell in the Wiltshire countryside.
The alcohol, drug and custard cream-fuelled antics of Johnny and his gang have earned Jerusalem almost unanimous praise and nabbed leading man Mark Rylance every acting gong going during the Royal Court, West End and Broadway runs.
Now the play is back on home turf, with Rylance, McKenzie Crook and a host of other original cast members coming back to the Apollo Theatre for a 14 week run.
As Jerusalem prepares to make its triumphant West End return, it seems about time to take a look at some of the other plays that have taken inspiration from Britain’s green and pleasant land.
Translations by Brian Friel
Focusing on the turbulent relationship between England and Ireland in the 19th century and the miscommunication that made that relationship even more precarious, Friel’s play about language has become a modern Irish classic. There is illicit love, political unrest and violence in the far from uneventful wilds of rural Ireland. And not a leprechaun in sight.
Afore Night Come by David Rudkin
The fields are drenched in blood in Rudkin’s violent vision of rural life, which was considered so shocking that the Royal Shakespeare Company had to find an obscure loophole in theatre censorship law in order to stage it in 1962. A seemingly innocuous Black Country orchard is the scene of bloodshed in this dark play with Pinteresque shades.
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
Stoppard’s time-travelling 1993 epic takes as its setting Sidley Park, an English country house, where action flits between the modern day research of a pair of scholars and the 19th century lives of the individuals under investigation. Past and present converge in this study of order, knowledge and time.
Fen by Caryl Churchill
All is far from rosy in the Fenland setting of Churchill’s fiercely bleak 1983 play, where the fields are fertilised with the broken dreams and ambitions of an exploited labour force. Alienated individuals struggle in a claustrophobic working class community and you can bet that the blossoming, affair between farm workers Val and Frank is going to end in tears.
The Village Bike by Penelope Skinner
This recent, risqué little offering from the Royal Court warns against the boredom of the country cottage and the sexless marriage, as pregnant, frustrated Becky rails against her conventional trappings and indulges in some kinky activities with the village lothario. With enough innuendos to make a Carry On film blush, Skinner’s play is a comic look at adultery in the countryside.
Jerusalem runs at the Apollo Theatre from 8 October 2011 to 14 January 2012.
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