Mark Rylance is leading Tartuffe (Remixed) at London’s Marylebone theatre this week, with Darren Raymond directing the production. The opening brings a 20-year relationship from HMP Brixton back into view, this time as a commercial theatre engagement built from Intermission Youth’s work.
HMP Brixton in 2004
Christmas Eve 2004 is where this started: Raymond and Rylance met at a Shakespeare workshop in HMP Brixton, when Rylance was twice Raymond’s age. About 20 prisoners were greeted by Dr Bruce Wall at the session, and Raymond later said the meeting had a positive impact, turning a prison workshop into a professional connection that now reaches Marylebone theatre.
2008 is when Raymond discussed that impact on Radio 4, and Rylance later visited Intermission’s headquarters at St Saviour’s Church in Knightsbridge after hearing him. Rylance said, “I was really knocked out by it, the production was everything I’d been looking for.”
Intermission Youth’s 80 trainees
80 trainees a year pass through Intermission Youth’s flagship programme, which combines masterclasses, pastoral support and professional performances for young people aged 11-30+. Raymond now runs the London-based arts charity and theatre as artistic director, so Tartuffe (Remixed) lands as more than a one-off casting choice: it puts that training pipeline in front of a wider London audience.
2019 was another turning point, when Intermission was asked to leave St Saviour’s Church and began struggling to secure a suitable permanent home. A production at Marylebone theatre gives the group visible stage space again, even if only for this run.
Rylance and the Globe
Mark Rylance has also drawn a line around where he wants his support to go. He said, “I don’t support my drama school, I don’t support the Globe any more, or the RSC,” and added, “In terms of my debt to Shakespeare, my debt to all the great teachers I had as a young person, this is it for me – this will be it until the day I die.”
That stance leaves Tartuffe (Remixed) in a sharper frame than a standard revival. Raymond’s adaptation of Molière is now being carried by a major name who is choosing grassroots arts initiatives over larger institutions, and the open question is how much Raymond has changed the play itself when the curtain goes up this week.
