What someone ought to do is to write a play which is set in a really naff pub – one with multiple television screens showing Manchester City playing West Ham, Phil Collins videos and miscellaneous TV programmes (all at the same time). One where a request for a glass of red wine is met with a raised eyebrow and delivered in the form of a screwtop bottle of the kind embraced by in-flight caterers.
It would feature clichéd pub characters straight out of Central Casting – the garrulous, drunken-yet-harmless Irishman who is a friend to everyone, a couple of local salesmen getting rowdier by the minute in their cheap suits, the over-done blousy matron perched atop her bar stool. Read the rest of this entry »