'My dad said he jumped buses. Horseboxes. Jumped an aqueduct once. He was gonna jump Stonehenge but the council put a stop to it.' On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron, local waster and modern day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his children want their dad to take them to the fair, Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of mates want his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. Jez Butterworth's new play is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. His previous plays for the Royal Court include "The Winterling", "The Night Heron" and "Mojo". "The key British theatre work of the last decade." Time Out 2012. An Instant Modern Classic. A comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. BEST PLAY Evening Standard Awards BEST PLAY Critics Circle Awards.

'Vanishing. It's a powerful word, that. A powerful word.' County Armagh, Northern Ireland, 1981. The Carney farmhouse is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest. A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor. Developed by Sonia Friedman Productions, Jez Butterworth's play The Ferryman premiered to huge acclaim at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in April 2017, before transferring to the West End and then Broadway. The production was directed by Sam Mendes. It went on to win the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play, and the Critics' Circle, Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards for Best New Play. It also won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Play.

A slick and violent black comedy set in the Soho clubland of the 1950s. The hit debut play from the author of Jerusalem. In the seedy gangster underworld of the rock'n'roll scene, club owners fight for control of Johnny Silver, the latest young sensation. First premiered at the Royal Court in 1995, Jez Butterworth's play Mojo won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and earned Butterworth the George Devine Award and Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. This edition of Mojo was published alongside the play's 2013 revival in London's West End.

Four full-length plays and two previously unpublished shorts from the multi-award-winning author of Jerusalem. Jez Butterworth burst onto the theatre scene aged twenty-five with Mojo, 'one of the most dazzling Royal Court main stage debuts in years' (Time Out). This first volume of his Collected Plays contains that play plus the three that followed, as well as two short one-person pieces published here for the first time - everything in fact that precedes Jerusalem, 'unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' (Guardian). Plays One includes: Mojo, staged in 1995 but set in the Soho clubland of 1958, 'superbly captures the atmosphere of the infant British rock and roll scene where seedy low-lifers hustle for the big time' (Daily Telegraph). It is 'Beckett on speed' (Observer) by a 'dramatist of obvious talent and terrific promise' (The Times). The Night Heron (2002) is set in the Cambridgeshire Fens amongst assorted oddballs, birdwatchers and the local constabulary. 'It's funny, it's sad, it's haunting and it also strangely beautiful. Above all, it is quite unlike anything you've ever seen before' (Daily Telegraph). In The Winterling (2006) a gangland fugitive is visited by two associates from the city who have other things on their mind than a jolly reunion. 'The dialogue is testosterone taut, a sense of menace invades every conversation... and as tales of torture and treachery unfold, the black comedy never misses' (Time Out). Leavings (previously unpublished), a short monologue about an old man whose dog has gone missing. The housing estate in Parlour Song (2008) is 'a place of illicit desire and painful memories, of bad dreams and mysterious disappearances... a play that combines the comic, the erotic and the downright disconcerting with superb panache' (Daily Telegraph). The Naked Eye (previously unpublished), a short monologue about a family preparing to watch Halley's Comet as it passes through the night sky. Introducing the plays is an interview with Jez Butterworth specially conducted for this volume.

'Come, you drunken spirits. Come, you battalions. You fields of ghosts who walk these green plains still. Come, you giants!' When Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2009, it served notice of an astonishing development in the career of a writer whose debut, Mojo, had premiered on the same stage nearly fifteen years before. Unearthing the mythic roots of contemporary English life, and featuring Mark Rylance in an indelible central performance as Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, the play transferred to the West End and then to Broadway, before returning to the West End in 2011. 'Storming... restores one's faith in the power of theatre' Independent. 'Unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' Guardian. Jerusalem was followed by the bewitching chamber play The River (Royal Court, 2012), a 'magnetically eerie, luminously beautiful psychodrama' Time Out. 'A delicately unfolding puzzle... all of it is wrapped in marvellous language... extraordinary' The Times. This volume concludes with the multi-award-winning The Ferryman (Royal Court and West End, 2017; Broadway, 2018), an excavation of lives shattered by violence, set in a farmhouse in Northern Ireland in 1981. 'A richly absorbing and emotionally abundant play... an instant classic' Independent. 'A magnificent play that uses, brilliantly, the vitality of live theatre to express the deadly legacy of violence' Financial Times. Also included here is the screenplay for the short film The Clear Road Ahead (2011), published here for the first time, and an edited transcript of a conversation between Butterworth and the playwright Simon Stephens.

On a moonless night in August, a man brings his new girlfriend to the remote family cabin where he has come for the fly-fishing since he was a boy. But she's not the first woman he has brought here--or indeed the last. A bewitching story from the author of global smash hit "Jerusalem."

A blackly hilarious exploration of deceit, paranoia and murderous desire, as the spirit of the Blues lands in leafy suburbia. Demolition expert Ned lives in a nice new house on a nice new estate on the edge of the English countryside. He loves his job. Barbecues. Car-boot sales. Fitness programmes. Outwardly his life is entirely unremarkable. Not unlike his friend and neighbour Dale. So why has he not slept a wink in six months? Why is he so terrified of his attractive wife Joy? And why is it every time he leaves on business, something else goes missing from his home? Jez Butterworth's play Parlour Song was first performed at the Atlantic Theater, New York, in Febraury 2008, before receiving its European premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London, in March 2009.

Winner of Best Play, 2009 Evening Standard Awards, Best New Play, Critics Circle Awards, and Best New Play, Whatsonstage.com Awards.

In rural Devon, one man in a barn is visited by two men from London, intent on dealing with some unfinished business. Only two men will leave the barn. This is Butterworth's third play to be directed by Ian Rickson at the Royal Court - and as always, something wonderful is guaranteed...His debut play Mojo, about the gangster underworld of the rock'n'roll scene in 1950s Soho, caused a sensation at the Court in 1995. It marched off with all the awards - including the Olivier Award for Best Comedy, the George Devine Award and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright - transferred to the West End, and was filmed with a cast including Harold Pinter, directed by Butterworth himself.