Howie The Rookie

From the off one thing is immediate – there’s no better venue for Mark O’Rowe’s Dublin-based black comedy than the Old Fitz'. As a somewhat rowdy audience find perches for pints Andrew Henry slips seamlessly from his administrative welcome to his lilting Irish tongue. The poetry and the accent catch you offguard at first, and by the time you find and match its rhythm, the sing-song qualities of its beauty, you’re faced with a scabies-infested mattress being bitterly burnt. Henry is a ball of restless energy and articulates himself, finds his words, in the same way he’d fight – it’s yarning at its best, pub yarning, even done with beer in hand (procured from a punter’s jug) when a tight throat stalls the story without breaking the charisma of The Howie Lee. His foe-to-be-friend and namesake The Rookie Lee (Sean Hawkins) sits with a wet Gallagher fringe and fresh black Adidas tracksuit, not even listening, but imposing the kind of enigmatic aura you’d expect from the kind of guy that contracts and clandestinely passes on scabies. Trading monologues they paint a blood-and-piss-soaked portrait of a classically epic tale that pivots on unexpected points far less grand than O’Rowe’s broader narrative arc: limp fighting fish and lazy sexual hygiene.

Howie The Rookie, Old Fitzroy Hotel to 25 Oct.