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BBC News
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Coventry hosts UK premiere of Roddy Doyle's Two Pints play
Two men sit at a bar, drinking Guinness and putting the world to setting, though, is not a Dublin pub - but Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, where Roddy Doyle's play Two Pints is part way through its first-ever UK Irish writer - known for novels including Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments, for which he wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation - uses the play to explore themes of ageing and friendship."They drink, but they're not drinking to drink," he said. "They're drinking for each other's company, really. That's what it's all about." Two Pints was first performed in 2017 in, appropriately, a pub in Dublin, before embarking on a tour of watering holes across wrote it soon after his father's death."The plot was inspired by the experience of visiting the hospital to see him, and dreading it," Doyle explained. "Wanting to go, but dreading it."So the rhythm of that time – visiting the hospital, going up for the last time to say goodbye to him, and then the funeral – is the plot of the play, really."The experience made Doyle reflect on the way men - especially men of a certain age - confide in one another."[I realised that] people, particularly men, will often open up if they're walking side by side rather than facing each other."It struck me that that was like being in a bar." 'Respite from anxieties' While admitting to "liking a good pub", Doyle is not trying to make light of the dangers of alcohol Doyle, the pub has a long tradition of bringing people together."When it came to two men of my generation meeting, there was no choice," he said. "It was the pub or nowhere. It was the one place men go."It's respite, isn't it, from life."Respite and withdrawal, from, I suppose, the trickier parts of life, the anxieties."Just for a while." Much has been made on social media of the creative swearing employed by Doyle's barstool philosophers, and, indeed, the Belgrade warns potential audience members of "some strong language".But Doyle insists it is not gratuitous."I examine every word," he explained. "And I try to make sure that is is something that those characters would say. It's part of the rhythm of the speech of working class Dublin people, and a lot of Irish people."I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it is what it is." 'It's a universal story' Like much of Doyle's work, Two Pints focuses on the lives of working-class Irish, told largely through nothing more than his hope is that his work - from The Commitments to Two Pints - has an international appeal."Groups of young people coming together to express themselves musically is a universal story, isn't it?" he said. "And the same with this one."Men growing older together, and finding comfort in each other's company, is a universal story." Two Pints is being performed at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, until 24 May. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Two Pints review — setting the world to rights on a barstool
Roddy Doyle's Two Pints began as short dialogue sketches shared on Facebook. After they were collected into a book in 2011, Doyle then adapted Two Pints for the stage in 2017, when it was performed in pubs around Ireland: a natural fit for a play where two men drink Guinness and shoot the breeze. It fits less well in the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry — quite literally, in that Claire Winfield's lovingly rendered old boozer set hugs the back wall of a venue where seating is arranged on three sides, rather than end-on. With its two characters only ever sat side by side at the bar, Sara Joyce's production leaves a strange, square vacuum of empty space where action would normally be. This spatial oddness
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Two Pints review – Roddy Doyle's boozy banter is a masterclass in comedy
While less dedicated or prolific writers were off boozing with their mates down the local, Roddy Doyle has spent almost a decade writing about it. From 2012-2019, he published three novels – Two Pints, Two More Pints, Two for the Road – in which two sixtysomething Irish men chatted over Guinness, their alcohol units far beyond those specified in the titles. Comprising only dialogue without even character names, the books seemed to call for dramatic form and, in 2017, Doyle premiered a play titled Two Pints in a Dublin pub, the speakers now distinguished as One and Two, tended by Raymond, an almost-silent barman. During lockdown, Doyle added six online duologues, The Zoom Pints, in which the men spoke while drinking alone at home. The collected craic packs a 432-page paperback – The Complete Two Pints. The theatrical banter is now revived in Coventry, and lightly updated to post-Covid Ireland. Summoned by bells from the Belgrade theatre bar, we double-take at a near replica – similar optics and crisp packets – though in reverse: Claire Winfield's set puts us behind the beer pumps, facing the drinkers. One (Anthony Brophy) is wiry, sarcastic, the drink a relief after visiting his dying father at a nearby hospital. Two (Sean Kearns), often the butt of jokes, is whimsical, quieter but also, we may come to feel, wiser. The conversations tend to fantasy, often involving women they like on television. They cast and review imaginary TV series, including Celebrity Car Park Attendant, in which Nigella Lawson is their favourite ticket vigilante. Another shared passion – football – informs a reverie about which famous players they would and wouldn't like to meet if there is an afterlife. In which conversation, the 'if' is the biggie, the laddish chat gradually overtaken by questions of life and death and the sins of the Irish Catholic church, made urgent by the condition of One's father. As proved by the easy adaptability of his novels to the screen – The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van – Doyle has an unusual facility with dialogue and gags, which the actors grace. When Brophy remembers the pub raising money 'to send the under-17 girls to Korea', Kearns, after a perfectly held pause, queries: 'Did they ever come back?' A reference to Ave Maria being sung at a funeral somehow moves via the Andrews Sisters to deep family memories. Some may resist the sweariness of the banter – the two words most likely to be bleeped on TV are as common as conjunctions – or its insistent masculinity, although Doyle and director Sara Joyce aren't necessarily endorsing this or expecting the audience to do so. But this is a masterclass in comedy writing and acting. At Belgrade theatre, Coventry, until 24 May
BBC News
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Coventry-made show helps actor with Down's syndrome remember mum
An inclusive theatre group is starting a national tour with a family-friendly comedy looking at how a woman with Down's syndrome deals with the death of her Know My Mum, staged by Coventry charity Ego Arts, explores grief through the real-life story of 25-year-old Alex, an actor who plays hour-long show - the first the charity has taken on tour - also sees Alex play a bird called Bluey and sequences in which her wild imagination leads her to battle Harry Potter said: "It means everything that we're remembering my mum and is a happy memory for life." Part of the production explores the relationship between Alex and her father, played by Francis Stojsavljevic who said: "The hardest part for me is performing a true story, because I know Alex's dad."Those emotions are real and I'm dealing with Alex, who these events actually happened to, so it's all very real and can get quite emotional."Alex added: "It will be exciting, it will be emotional and everyone will applaud me." Ego's artistic director Georgina Egan described the "cheeky comedy", which also stars adults from a local social-care service, as "a really great, life-affirming piece of theatre"."They may be neurodivergent, they may have physical disabilities, but they are all very talented, creative people that have got a very valid story to tell," she said. The tour starts on Friday at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, before moving on to the Arena Theatre in are further dates throughout May and June at venues in Stockton-on-Tees, Corby, Ellesmere Port, York, Birmingham and of £16,000 from Arts Council England has allowed the production to bring in experts in captioning and a dedicated team to ensure performances are fully accessible. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Shakespeare rap could inspire youth'
Rap music could inspire young people to get into Shakespeare, a 16-year-old student who has helped produce a contemporary performance of Romeo and Juliet Jones, who attends Coventry Academy, has helped create a new adaptation of the famous Shakespeare love story play that blends classic poetry with rap and R& at the Belgrade Theatre, the show has been billed as being for those "who love the music of the spoken word of every generation". Harvey, who contributed to the music and direction, said the performance is "really impressive". "I have felt chosen, in a sense, because I've never had this much work put towards me," he said. "The way that they speak in Shakespeare is completely different, but the background is still the same. "There are people today fighting for love and their families don't agree with it - but they'll still fight for it. "The way they've made everything fit in together is really impressive. "Doing rapping and Shakespeare together is really good way to get all ages invested in watching the show." The performance is a co-production with Bristol Old Vic and Hackney Empire and directed by the Belgrade's Creative Director, Corey will run at the Belgrade Theatre from 21 February – 8 March. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
