Dublin taxi driver Carl is a loser. He has lost his wife, his self-respect and three grand at the roulette table - and he is about to lose his legs to local gangster Jackie Farrell, who wants the debt paid before midnight. Fat vegetarian Carl fears he is going to be mincemeat, but he hasn't reckoned on the loyalty and friendship of two other men on the cab rank: George, his father-in-law, and likely lad Bush. Soon the three are playing a game of bluff with Jackie and his thick son, Fred, in which the stakes are terrifyingly high.
Like a kinder, rosier, more sentimental version of one of David Mamet's ingenious scam dramas, Robert Massey's comedy, produced by Irish new writing company Fishamble, is an enjoyable jaunt. It may not be the theatrical ride of your life, but it is an interesting portrait of men adrift in a world without the civilising influence of women. Women are entirely absent here - either dead, sick or the subject of sexual boasting - and yet their absence is keenly felt. The men plug the gap with obsessional behaviour: food, gambling or, in the case of George, taking advantage of Aldi special offers to stock up on toilet rolls.
Massey's play often takes the scenic route, particularly in the ambling first half, but it is filthily funny, and after the interval Jim Culleton's amiable production ratchets up a gear. It helps that the acting is spot on, particularly from Bryan Murray as Jackie and Eamonn Hunt as George, two men bound together by past friendship and both determined to settle old debts.
