Where once its anti-hero spoke for England’s left-behind, today he seems to embody the whole country. It’s a play about the nation, but the audience can decide its state. But what does that make it today? An artefact? A howl from the past? Or an easy way to get bums on seats? No, this ambiguous show regenerates, takes on new meaning. It returns to the West End with the same leads (Rylance and Mackenzie Crook), the same director (Ian Rickson), and the same design and creative team. So perhaps inevitably, Jerusalem does not feel as radical as it did in 2009, but its relevance is enduring: the myth goes that this state-of-the-nation play about a neglected rural community anticipated what was stirring – first the Tories, then the Brexit-age eruption. I’m not about to stick my head above the parapet: Jerusalem is a masterpiece – stirring, seductive, slick as the shoe-polish hair on its star Mark Rylance’s head. The drop curtain feels like a provocation. A St George’s Cross stands at least 30 feet tall almost the size of the giants that, we will learn, once walked this green and pleasant land. In front of it, a girl dressed as a fairy trills “Jerusalem”, and the curtain rises once more on Jez Butterworth’s three-hour epic about Englishness, no less, that most unfashionable thing. When it first appeared 13 years ago, it earned such epithets as “instant modern classic”, “turning point in contemporary theatre”, and “greatest play of the century”.

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