Jerusalem

Apollo Theatre, London                                         Until August 7, 3hrs 10mins

Rating:

The Corn Is Green

Lyttelton, National Theatre                                     Until June 11, 2hrs 35mins

Rating:

Mark Rylance first appeared in this play in 2009. He’s become a Hollywood film star in the meantime but, since Jerusalem, he’s had no juicier part.

Now he’s back and barely ever off stage as Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, who lives in a trailer, partying and purveying cannabis, ‘wizz’ and booze to the local kids.

He is well known – and not in a fond way – to the South Wiltshire Constabulary and to local parents. He’s also in complete denial about being evicted.

This dodgy charmer is a glorious creation. Being longer in the tooth means Rylance now brings a note of mortality behind the twinkle.

New plays today are like healthy, vegan drinks. Jez Butterworth’s creation is super-strength cider chased with budget vodka.

It’s thrillingly well written and lets the magic rip in Byron’s massively tall stories: like the one about the giant he once met near a Little Chef on the A14 who built Stonehenge; or the four Nigerian traffic wardens who kidnapped him in Marlborough.

Yet Byron is not bluffing when he claims indigenous, ancestral English rights to the woods – a controversial theme that, post-Brexit, now has an extra edge.

The evening has the feel of a reunion party: Mackenzie Crook (fantastic) reprises his role as Johnny’s failed DJ mate, Ginger. Also returning is Alan David as the nutty professor and Gerard Horan as the humiliated morris-dancing publican.

Ian Rickson’s direction judges the comedy perfectly and the leafy glade of a set (with real trees) is a design triumph by Ultz.

As the forces of Rooster Byron’s heart-rending destruction gather in the woods, he invokes, in an unforgettable finale, the sleeping gods and giants of English mythology. I found myself rooting for him with my life.

The Corn Is Green dates from 1938.

A neglected gem, it here stars Nicola Walker (off the leash from BBC1’s The Split) as a bustling, forthright, unmarried Englishwoman who goes to the Welsh Valleys and makes it her mission to get a gifted young miner (Iwan Davies) out of the pit and into Oxford University.

Dominic Cooke’s amusing, lively direction invents a role for the play’s author, Emlyn Williams (Gareth David-Lloyd), and adds a chorus of singing miners.

A bright, humane entertainment, and rather humbling, too, especially if you’ve ever taken your education for granted.