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.
'A richly absorbing and emotionally abundant play… an instant
classic'
*Independent*
'An astonishing, enormous, shattering eruption of a play… it left
me genuinely stunned'
*Time Out*
'Huge in the scale of its cast, of its ambition, of its rich
themes. But above all, massive in its capacity to hold an audience
rapt, in silence, telling them a story. It is, like Jerusalem
before it, an extraordinary, thrilling act of belief in the power
of theatre to gather people in a room and make them listen…
Butterworth's writing, both flexible and controlled, makes every
moment, whether funny, tender or tragic worth leaning forward to
catch… a triumphant, bold piece of theatre, full of life and heart
and passion'
*WhatsOnStage*
'Butterworth has done it again… a drama of mighty magnitude... miss
this and you've missed a marvel'
*Telegraph*
'A ripping thriller in a big family home, stuffed with eccentricity
and black comedy, it swells into an expansive examination of
Republican history, politics and identity, as tied up with the IRA…
a tumbling and tumultuous play, one that swerves off into
storytelling, song and dance, and debate, without taking its eye
off the need for suspense. It's a thriller that bursts the bounds
of its genre, but never forgets what makes the form tick.
Butterworth loads his traps patiently, then bides his time... it's
a prime example of thinking through theater, as Butterworth
embodies ideas and makes images felt, rubs stories off against each
other and stirs motifs into the mix. From missed-out motherhood to
lost love, the play courses with yearned-for connections that
remain agonizingly incomplete. But it is, above all, entirely
entertaining'
*Variety*
'Fully justifies the hype... a feast of intricate storytelling,
it's absorbing, soulful and ultimately shattering'
*Evening Standard*
'Jez Butterworth is back – and how... his new play is a mighty
affair, sending stories, characters, history, politics and love
skittering across the floor with the flair of a gambler rolling
dice. It's a stunning piece of writing: teeming with life; haunted
by death… Butterworth takes the great family drama and makes it his
own. You can see traces of Friel, Miller, Chekhov, Ibsen, even
Aeschylus and Sophocles, and it's clearly a twist on the Irish
dramatic canon. He offers a masterclass in observing the classical
unities, using dramatic irony and building tension. But he also
brings to it his own love of storytelling and skill with menace,
binding the two to depict the tragic mesh of conflict… a
magnificent play that uses, brilliantly, the vitality of live
theatre to express the deadly legacy of violence'
*Financial Times*
'A serious, seriously good, grown-up play... something special'
*The Times*
'A rich, serious, deeply involving play… what gives Butterworth's
play such shattering force is its Hardyesque love of rural rituals
and its compassionate exploration of unspoken love'
*Guardian*
'A stunning, sprawling and richly written play… a mixing of the
mythic and the modern'
*The Stage*
'A story that heaves with narratives and with incidents, with jokes
and with surreal moments… an amazing experience. Butterworth’s
storytelling finesse carries all before it'
*The Arts Desk*
'A harvest feast of immeasurable brilliance. Butterworth's writing
offers an exquisite balance of humour and drama, revelry and
mourning, surprise and expectation. It is a masterclass in every
aspect… an unforgettable piece of theatre that will no doubt be
talked about for decades to come'
*Broadway World*
'A stunning piece that might be even better than Mojo and even
Jerusalem, which is really saying something… combines elements of
Greek tragedy with a shrewd commentary on recent Irish history in
the wrapping of a high octane family drama'
*British Theatre Guide*
'Fiercely gripping… overflows with storytelling vitality, the kind
that so holds the attention that three and a quarter-hours seem to
pass in the blink of an eye, albeit a bloodied and black one'
*New York Times*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |