By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Tuesday 1 October, runs through 23 November 2024 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Rylance is the titular peacock – pronounced ‘paycock’ in an Irish accent – who plays workshy father-of-2 ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle, a man never short of tall tales of adventure.

• Read on for reasons including how this is the funniest comedy in London’s West End right now with a very memorable central performance

You join us in the tenements of Dublin in 1922 where Jack’s salt-of-the-earth wife Jude, an impressive performance from Succession‘s J Smith-Cameron, is trying to persuade fantasist Jack out of the snugs of the local pubs in the carousing company of ‘butty’ Joxer, a rip-roaring Paul Hilton (The Glass Menagerie, Duke Of York’s) and back to work.

Rylance won our Best Theatre Actor monsta in 2022 for his return to Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre and is once again in outstanding form reminding of the physical comedy of greats including Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin as he attempts to conceal a hot plate of breakfast sausages from Jude first on his lap and then in a tablecloth.

Old Vic artistic director Matthew Warchus (Groundhog Day, Old Vic) helms this production of the self-professed ‘Irish masterpiece’ by Sean O’Casey and a crucifix hangs over proceedings ominously to remind of the influence of the church over what we are seeing.

But it is O’Casey’s affinity with this world which gives it a sense of place and time and it is his affection for the people in whose company we are spending moments that initially makes this a riot of slapstick comedy at least at first.

The captain’s striking daughter is well drawn by Aisling Kearns and she finds a suitor in schoolteacher and aspiring solicitor Bentham who informs the family that they are about to inherit a large sum of money in a will which prompts much singing, drunken celebration and spending.

The captain’s son Johnny, a suitably haunted Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty, has lost his arm in the War Of Independence and agonises over a suspected betrayal of a murdered former comrade as the mood turns darker.

We’re in the 4th row, we’re sitting in front of star Anne Reid (Marjorie Prime, Menier Chocolate Factory) and there’s a very Broadway ripple of applause as Rylance enters the stage for the 1st time early on.

But for all his outstanding physical comedy it’s O’Casey’s empathy for the people living in poverty he is writing about, his hatred of war, his love of socialism but also the calling out of commonplace injustices particularly against women in a society in thrall to the church that is this show’s star and makes it so memorable.

A minor gripe would be the timing of the interval – 50 minutes in with a 2nd half lasting 80 felt awkward – but this is a tremendous revival of a play we’d not seen before partly because we were never quite sure what the word ‘paycock’ was referring to although now it makes perfect sense.

Juno and the Paycock is arguably the funniest comedy in London’s West End right now with tragedy never too far behind and this is exquisitely cast with a very memorable central performance by Rylance at its heart.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy DMT Tickets
• Have you seen a Mark Rylance show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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