The Ferryman

Sam Mendes and Jez Butterworth? It's a creative match made in heaven, and it's coming to the West End's beautiful Gielgud Theatre for summer 2017. Mendes and Butterworth are collaborating on a brand new Butterworth play set in Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, a time when the infamous hunger strikes of 1981 saw ten republican political prisoners starve themselves to death, including – most famously - Bobby Sands. Their protest over prison conditions made world headlines and disgraced the British government, a fitting subject for Butterworth who was apparently brought up in a highly political household where powerful memories of the Troubles live on.

The new play, The Ferryman, is set towards the end of the hunger strike, but instead of an urban setting takes the action out to a rural farmstead where a family's main concerns revolve around getting the annual harvest in. The Ferryman is being co-produced by Sonia Friedman, whose impressive portfolio includes the massive West End hits Sunny Afternoon and Harry Potter And The Cursed Child. Jerusalem went on to be a huge West End and Broadway hit in 2009, starring Mark Rylance and winning him a Tony for best actor. The Ferryman is tipped to have an equally powerful impact.