Harold Pinter Theatre, London, until 15th June
Is Jez Butterworth Britain’s greatest living playwright? Alan Bennett, Michael Frayn and Tom Stoppard are all still with us, but Butterworth, the author of critically acclaimed dramas such as The Ferryman and Jerusalem, is a generation younger – and, at 54, he’s reaching the peak of his powers. He burst onto the stage in 1995 with Mojo – a dark, dynamic thriller set in a 1950s Soho nightclub. Written in his mid-twenties, it was an incredibly accomplished debut, drawing comparisons to Harold Pinter. Pinter played a gangland villain in the 1997 film – so it feels fitting that Butterworth’s new play is playing in a theatre named after his theatrical godfather. Like Mojo, The Hills of California is about the sleazy underbelly of showbiz, yet this time the setting isn’t seedy Soho but the drab back streets of Blackpool. It’s the long hot summer of 1976, and three sisters –...
I’m afraid this isn’t one of our four free articles available in full, which are set out in the first two rows of the ‘Magazine’ page.
Please click here to find them.
To buy a digital version of this issue for just £2.99, click here
