Coincidentally, at the time of writing this (early May 2017) we have just seen a new Jez Butterworth, The Ferryman, which was excellent.
While I remember Parlour Song pretty well, it hadn’t dawned on me that it was also a Jez Butterworth play.
There’s a good trailer and stuff on the Digital Theatre Plus site – click here.
It was a very good, very funny play. All three members of the cast: Amanda Drew, Toby Jones and Andrew Lincoln were terrific.
- Michael Billington in the Guardian gave it four stars and inferred that it was Jez Butterworth’s best play yet;
- Charles Spencer in The Telegraph loved the play and the production;
- Michael Coveney in the Independent also loved it.
I don’t think it sent us into quite the level of ecstasy that the critics describe, but we did enjoy this one a lot, without finding much depth; it is basically a slightly quirky, sinister comedy about suburban infidelity.
But it did for sure signal Jez Butterworth on that upward trajectory to playwriting stardom.