Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook Lead Cast in West End Transfer of JERUSALEM in January 2010

Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook will lead the cast in the West End transfer of The Royal Court Theatre's sell-out production of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, directed by Ian Rickson. Jerusalem, which received its world premiere at the Royal Court in July and for which Rylance in particular received outstanding reviews, will have a strictly limited 12 week run at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. Previewing from Thursday 28 January 2010, Jerusalem has its press night on Wednesday 10 February and is booking until Saturday 24 April 2010. Designed by Ultz, with lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherin, sound by Ian Dickinson and music by Stephen Warbeck, Jerusalem is produced in the West End by Sonia Friedman Productions and Royal Court Theatre Productions.

Jerusalem is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron, local waster and modern day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his children want their dad to take them to the fair, Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of mates want his ample supply of drugs and alcohol.

The West End cast includes Jessica Barden, Tom Brooke, Greg Burridge, Lewis Coppen, Mackenzie Crook, Alan David, Aimeé-Ffion Edwards, Lenny Harvey, Gerard Horan, Danny Kirrane, Charlotte Mills, Lucy Montgomery, Sarah Moyle, Dan Poole, Harvey Robinson, Mark Rylance and Barry Sloane.

Internationally award-winning actor Mark Rylance was last in the West End playing Robert In Boeing-Boeing, a role he reprised on Broadway where he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in Play. Rylance is soon to be seen at the Duchess Theatre playing Hamm in Samuel Beckett's Endgame. As Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre his work as an actor included the title roles in Henry V and Hamlet as well as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Olivia in Twelfth Night. His other theatre work includes many productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Glasgow Citizens as well as True West for the Donmar Warehouse, Bloody Poetry for the Royal Court and The Maids for Shared Experience. In the West End he played Benedict in Much Ado about Nothing directed by Matthew Warchus, winning him the Olivier Award for Best Actor. His film and television work includes The Other Boleyn Girl, Prospero's Book, Angels and Insects, Leonardo, and most recently, David Kelly in C4's The Government Inspector for which he won the BAFTA Best Actor Award.

Mackenzie Crook, best known for his screen roles in the three Pirates of the Caribbean films and TV's The Office, was last on stage in the West End in Ian Rickson's Royal Court production of The Seagull. His other stage work includes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Garrick Theatre and the Exonerated at Riverside Studios. His other film credits include Brothers Grimm, Finding Neverland, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, City of Ember, and the yet to be released Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n' Roll and The Adventures of Tin Tin. His television credits include Merlin, Skins, Little Dorritt and Demons.

Jez Butterworth's first play Mojo opened at the Royal Court in 1995 and subsequently won five drama awards including the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Most Promising Playwright and the Olivier Award for Best Comedy. He returned to the Royal Court in 2002 with The Night Heron and The Winterling in 2006. His films Mojo, starring Harold Pinter, and Birthday Girl, starring Nicole Kidman, were both shown at the Venice Film Festival. In 2007 he received the E.M. Forster Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 his play Parlour Song received its British premiere at The Almeida Theatre, directed by Ian Rickson. 2010 will see the release of his film Fair Game with a cast including Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.

Ian Rickson has previously directed Jez Butterworth's The Winterling, The Night Heron, Mojo and most recently, Parlour Song. Rickson was Artistic Director of the Royal Court from 1998-2006 where his many productions included Krapp's Last Tape which he also directed for BBC4, Fallout which he also directed as a film for Channel 4, The Weir which transferred to the West End and Broadway, Mojo which also transferred to the West End and then New York and the critically acclaimed production of The Seagull which was transferred to Broadway by Sonia Friedman Productions. For the National Theatre he has directed The Hothouse and The Day I Stood Still. Earlier this year Rickson's production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, starring Mary Louise Parker, opened on Broadway.

For more information, click here:
www.jerusalemtheplay.com