The good news is that Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen, a witty black comedy thriller about capital punishment and miscarriages of justice, originally staged at the Royal Court, has now transferred to the West End. It could be in the running for Best Play Award.
Matthew Dunster’s production maintains a tight grip on a revenge plot which goes violently wrong. A McDonagh play without any violence would be a contradiction in terms. The action takes place in 1965 mainly in an Oldham pub owned by England’s last hangman (David Morrissey), an arrogant, cowardly bully, who boasts he hanged 233 people and is put firmly in his place by the former number one hangman (John Hodgkinson).
Johnny Flynn has a big success as a Southern intruder who is both charming and menacing and delivers his dialogue, with their Ortonesque speech rhythms, with comic assurance