Mark Rylance makes a galvanizing return to the London stage as the 19th century Hungarian surgeon whose work on antiseptics ultimately saved the lives of countless new mothers and newborns.
The haunted, messianic Semmelweis couldn’t be more different to Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, the antic lord of misrule Rylance reprised in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem last year, 13 years after originating the role. Both are heroically flawed outsiders, though, prone to self-sabotage. That Rylance has recently revealed in an interview that he initially took a garlic solution rather than a vaccine to counter Covid somehow adds a perverse piquancy to the evening.
