Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

Mark Rylance back on stage again is always a moment for celebration, even when I am back in the gods, looking mainly at the top of his head.  This was made more challenging in the first half by a tall man in front of me, fidgeting and (I can’t believe it but it really is true)  wearing a hat. Luckily there was a vacant seat along the row so the second half was much better and ironically the man took his hat off, just possibly triggered by me muttering about hats in theatres.   Rylance in the title role, plays the man who discovered a way to stop the huge number of maternal and infant deaths from purpureal fever but then was not listened to, due partly to the failure of those medical men to listen, but also due to his own failure to manage the way he communicated the message.  A story about science and the human failure to listen and act, it feels quite timely given the science that humanity is collectively ignoring at the moment.  But it is also a human drama an...

I  first saw Mark Rylance play Johnnie Rooster in those glorious pre-brexity days of 2010 when Cool Britannia was fading but not yet a distant memory. I was not sure I wanted to see it again but I am glad I did.  With Mark Rylance back again it was another memorable experience.  The same play, but where the divisions between the different classes and cultures of Englishness had seemed to be the start of something in 2010, there was now an air of tiredness and decay, a sense that this might be the end instead.  I love when a play flexes and still speaks to the times.   What I don't know is whether it will survive another lead actor, as Mark Rylance continues to be the life force of the play.  I'd quite like to see him do it again in another 10 years, although he might have to forgo the handstands then.