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Mark Rylance mesmerised audiences with his Olivier Award-winning turn as visionary layabout Rooster Byron in Jerusalem . Now, he’s playing a boozy ne’er-do-well of a more old-fashioned sort in Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s 1924 classic, in a production that’s rich in hilarity but a little short on enchantment. J Smith-Cameron (also known as tantalisingly firm lawyer Geri in Succession ) brings plenty of staunch energy to the title’s Juno, her shoulders bearing the weight of a useless husband, a war-wounded son, and a striking daughter in an impoverished Dublin tenement.

And Rylance finds all the silliness in the role of the patriarchal Paycock (aka Peacock) Jack Boyle, a former sailor whose life’s great labour is avoiding work – until an unexpected inheritance sets him preening. There’s darkness aplenty in the background, with Johnny (Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty) skulking at the corner of the stage, mourning the arm he lost in a fight for Irish independence that won’t let him rest. But the play’s best moments are its silliest, with the first act giving Rylance endless opportunities for mischief, beautifully abetted by Matthew Warchus ’s direction.



Jack and his even more disreputable friend Joxer (Paul Hilton) have endless comic bits of business, bringing serious skill to Punch and Judy-style moments of naughtiness: Rylance pinches hot sausages then hides them agonisingly in his lap; Hilton swallow-dives out the window when fearsome Juno appears. This o.

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