Gielgud Theatre until November 23

Tickets: 0344 482 5151

Sean O’Casey’s play is a tragicomedy set in a Dublin tenement in 1922. Civil War rages, workers are on strike and money’s too tight to mention. Juno Boyle (Succession’s J Smith-Cameron) struggles to keep things together while her workshy husband ‘Captain’ Jack (Mark Rylance) disdains sobriety with his drinking pal Joxer (Paul Hilton), daughter Mary (Aisling Kearns) joins the striking workers and son Johnny (Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty) hides out in his bedroom having been seriously wounded in a street battle.

The delicate balance between character comedy and the grim context of conflict and deprivation is difficult to negotiate at the best of times and this, alas, is not one of them. The fragile edifice is totally destroyed by Rylance’s theatrical wrecking ball of a performance, leaving the rest of the cast to pick up the debris.

Appearing like a sozzled Charlie Chaplin, he addresses the audience in the style of a Music Hall comedian, breaking the fourth wall with a tsunami of nudge-nudge wink-winkery, double takes and ‘amusing’ gestures whenever he thinks he can get a laugh. It’s an act of theatrical vandalism that renders the shift from comedy to tragedy utterly unconvincing.