Starting out as a series of conversational Facebook posts that a bored Roddy Doyle knocked out while holed up in a hotel room, Two Pints is an incredibly funny and occasionally very affectionate look at life from the perspective of two middle-aged pals who meet up to sup Guinness in a Dublin pub.

The two men are very much everyman – we never know their names (the script identifies them only as ‘one’ and ‘two’) – and the drivel they spout is the sort of nonsense only gentlemen of a certain age could come up with, but eavesdropping on their delightful diatribes is supremely entertaining and occasionally even life affirming.

Most of the back and forth is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, the barstool philosophers sharing thoughts on everything from Nigella Lawson (a recurring subject), burger meat and novel ways to dodge a speeding ticket to disrespectful hospital car park attendants, Alzheimer’s Disease and the relative merits of different types of cancer.

Those latter elements are simultaneously funny and poignant, as the pair not only come to terms with the lingering death of one character’s father – there’s a reason for so many hospital tales – but the nature of mortality itself.

But as much as death casts a regular shadow over proceedings – or at least quietens the auditorium – it never lasts for long, with another daft quip just another ‘come here’ away. One minute the conversation is about the horror of watching, waiting, and almost wanting the death of a parent, the next it’s about the weird nature of the funeral business and how choosing a coffin is no different to picking a flavour of Cornetto.

The action – not that there is any – is centred entirely on two stools in a carefully-recreated Irish pub, with the audience effectively (and inspiringly) located behind the bar so we can observe the actors and not their backs. Indeed we see their faces more than they do, as the pair rarely look at each other – a deliberate device to acknowledge how men often find it easier to let their guards down when they’re free from the intimidation of eye contact.

The static nature of the set-up – you can imagine it working well as a radio play – means the production relies purely on the quality of the script and performances, and both elements are more than up to the task.

Writer Doyle, best-known for The Commitments and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, is a bona fide master of dialogue, while leads Anthony Brophy – who looks like comedian Ed Byrne’s elder sibling – and Sean Kearns are both exceptional, delivering their (many) lines with brilliant comedic timing as well as a dose of genuine pathos. And be warned – a lot of c-bombs.

According to Mark Twain (and subsequently appropriated by Woody Allen) humour is created by tragedy + time, a formula that Doyle largely eschews – the third act is set in the immediate aftermath of a funeral – but makes it work courtesy of two genuinely engaging characters that serve up plenty of belly laughs as well as a hint of something weightier just beneath the surface.

The fact that it largely remains there adds to the realism, and while the duo’s stoic acceptance of life hardly packs a punch – a brief hand on the shoulder is the sum total of physical contact on display – Two Pints is a thoroughly enjoyable snifter as well as a decent slug of the human condition.

4 stars

Reviewed By Steve Adams at the Belgrade Theatre on Wednesday 7 May. Two Pints continues at the venue until Saturday 24 May.