Jerusalem was such a rocking night out

This play is a pulsating and profound story about Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a renegade who lives in a caravan in the woods in Wiltshire.

He’s a long-retired motorcycle stunt rider, once a local hero, now a crazed, degenerate philosopher who walks with a limp and corrupts his young friends from the village. The council have been trying to evict him for years.

We loved Jerusalem, which takes its name from the poem by William Blake.

Like everybody else, we just loved it.

Easy to sum up : Best play by a modern British writer, Jez Butterworth, finest performance by a current British actor, Mark Rylance.

The star is spellbinding, his limp is the best you’ll ever see, his rants volcanic as he shouts lines like, “Drink to Titania and all the lost Gods of England!”

When his lifestyle is questioned , he roars back with: “What d’you think an English forest is for?”

Such bravado and humour bring gales of laughter throughout the night, and when it’s not funny you can hear a pin drop in the Apollo Theatre.

Really wish I’d seen Rylance do Shakespeare at The Globe.

The supporting cast, who play young villagers, an abattoir worker, an aspiring DJ, a publican, a retired professor, and council officials, are superb.

The trees actually look like real trees, and the light on them looks remarkably like sunlight. You can’t ask for more than that.

It’s on till January and if you can get tickets, it’s a rocking night out that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

In ten years time, when they say, “Myles, what d’you remember about the last 50 years?” I’ll say : Mark Rylance in Jerusalem, Ray Parlour’s thirty yarder against Valencia, and Van Morrison & the Caledonian Soul Orchestra at the Rainbow.”