Jasper Rees

Dahl by Spielberg

The film is held aloft by the loamy charm of Mark Rylance, who would make a great Scrooge or Prospero or God

issue 23 July 2016

Nobody who witnessed it can have forgotten Mark Rylance summoning giants to his aid in Jerusalem. As Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, drug-dealing roustabout threatened with expulsion from his little patch of Eden, Rylance roared and drummed until the theatre shuddered with the sound of gigantic stomps approaching. That colossal performance brought him to international — as in American — attention.

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