Martin McDonagh’s black comedy thriller was the latest production to be transmitted live from the West End to the enterprising Connaught’s screen.

With a story line centring on the last public hangman, there was no disappointment as to the amount of gallows humour that the writer deftly crafted into his wickedly funny script.

The play opens in 1963 where the hanging of a young man descends into bungling farce carried out by Harry Wade and his assistant Syd.

It then moves on two years, to the day that capital punishment is abolished, and to the bar of the Wade’s pub where he struts his “fame” before his sycophantic cronies.

The banter and cosiness is disturbed by the arrival of Mooney who brings with him an air of menace and the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

The clever writing that mixes comedy with tension was matched by its pitch perfect cast led by David Morrissey as the tin pot-god, Wade and Johnny Flynn as Mooney, a creation that is a melange of Orton, Pinter and possibly Peter Cook - two wonderful performances.

The play ends with a most hilarious piece of theatrical misdirection – all in the hands of Andy Nyman’s Syd.

Five stars