Rolls In Their Pockets @ Oran Mor

Rolls In Their Pockets is theatre for the Arab Strap generation: raw, bruised and bleakly funny.

Review by Missy Lorelei | 11 May 2012

This is theatre for the Arab Strap generation: raw, bruised and bleakly funny. A pint, a brawl, a pint, a pint and a pint, if you like. Having wowed audiences last year with Rob Drummond: Wrestling, in which the hirsute playwright turned professional wrestler (as well as having a verbal bout with oor ain Performance Editor himself - see Vile's excellent interview from The Skinny April 2011), it should come as no shock that a pugnacious temperament swaggers throughout Drummond's latest play for PPP.

Middle-aged Norman (Laurie Ventry) and Laurie (Lewis Howden) spend their days in an unnamed bar, endlessly pontificating like a soused Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Their routine is shattered when a dazed newcomer enters, covered in blood. Initially,the men bond with their new friend George (Jordan Young), a young medical student who has fought with his pregnant fiancee - until the alcohol wears off and the DTs-and paranoia-set in. Is the blustering Laurie all he seems, and are eccentric Norman's Pavlovian requests for more Guiness when the bell rings a cry for help?

The moments of soul-searching are punctured by humour which is salty and laugh-out-loud-clever-lairy, with layers - although some older people looked shocked at some of the language. A few even walked out.

Rolls... ultimately raises more questions than it answers (are they in Hell, or Limbo? Has time stood still, or is it all a hallucinatory nightmare?) One thing's for certain- you may want to re-think that extra "one for the road" after all.

Run ended. http://playpiepint.com