Two Pints – Belgrade Theatre, Coventry

Writer: Roddy Doyle

Director: Sara Joyce

Two men of a certain age meet in the pub from time to time and set the world to rights over a pint or three. It’s certainly a premise many of us can relate to but can a very static production hold our attention for almost two hours?

Yes. Yes it can. And the reason it can is because of the quality of the creative minds involved.

Writer Roddy Doyle is known for his dialogue-heavy writing that explores the experiences of working-class Dubliners. His ear for dialogue is truly exceptional, and we are drawn into the characters’ world from the off. This writing is raw, with frequent strong language that somehow never feels offensive, but with a cadence of its own. It’s not hyperbole to describe it as poetry in its ebbs and flows and the way it sits lightly on the ear. There’s a lot of wide-ranging nonsense talked – Nigella Lawson seems to crop up as a fantasy figure more than once – but Doyle has written from the heart about two men who would never, ever say as much but who nevertheless love one another. Not in THAT way, of course – a memorable segment has them discussing the merits of marrying another man at their age … provided he were not gay.

The staging is deceptively simple. Claire Winfield has provided a detailed set of an Irish bar. We’re behind the bar, our protagonists are seated side-by-side facing us on the other side, almost never leaving their stools. In his remarks in the programme, Doyle notes that when sitting side-by-side, the conversation can have a different dynamic. If the men are not looking directly at one another, he says, maybe they ‘might reveal more, be less guarded’. And so it turns out. The characters don’t have names – they’re referred to in the programme as ‘One’ and ‘Two’. One is played by Anthony Brophy, Two by Sean Kearns. The largely silent barman, Raymond (Steve Gunn), completes the cast.

When we first meet them, One is berating his friend about his efforts to see his father in hospital. A touching line is where he remarks that despite having about seven grandchildren, it’s amazing that he, One, still has someone alive who calls him ‘Son’. And there are genuine laugh-out-loud moments in his anecdote about gaining entrance to the hospital and subsequently getting out of the car park. As the conversation flows and time passes, it becomes clear that One is having to cope with the inevitable, that his 97-year-old father is nearing the end. There’s no sugar-coating or excessive sentimentality on display, but the undemonstrative friendship and shared experiences undoubtedly support his coping.

But, like with rats, we’re never far from a genuine and warm laugh.

After the interval, after the funeral, it does get a bit more sombre, a bit more introspective, but still relatable and funny – the chat around the singing of the Ave Maria is painfully so even within its context as a funeral song.

Director Sara Joyce sums the whole up perfectly as ‘an ode to connection, community and friendship’. She also remarks that she undertook the task with some trepidation as it is quite different to her previous work. Nevertheless, her understated directorial hand allows the men to tell their story simply and directly; with writing this good, one simply doesn’t need bells and whistles.

What one does need, however, are actors at the top of their game, and Brophy and Kearns deliver in spades. They might not move about much, but their faces are mobile, and the simplest of nuanced gestures is imbued with meaning. Their comic timing is nothing short of perfect. It’s high praise indeed that one completely forgets that these are actors delivering lines; we feel like onlookers in real life. Every element comes together in utter perfection, the whole being so much more than the parts.

Two Pints is beautiful, comic and sad. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect piece of theatre, or a more satisfying night out.

Runs until 24 May 2025