Although set in a bleak London hostel, this is a play about Belfast: about the people who were forced to leave its geographic location but bound to carry with them memories of their home place. Owen McCafferty’s thought-provoking new play brings us on a series of journeys with the protagonists, Ger (Karl Johnson) and Iggy (Ian McElhinney), from their public pasts and the contribution they made to the building of British transport systems, to their private memories of their youth and the burdens which they are now left with.

Stuart Marshall's simple set emphasises the bleakness of the two men’s existence in the hostel. With nothing but a table and chairs, and a canister of boiling water to make tea, it is clear that the two men have limited sustenance or comfort as they reach the latter stages of their lives. There is a sense that death is approaching, but never actually comes, as they try to trace the route across the London Underground from Angel to the cemetery in East Finchley. Instead of making the journey to their friend’s burial, wearing mismatched and ragged clothes, they sit and talk about their different paths through life.

There is both comedy and pathos in their interaction as the gloom of the setting and circumstances is relieved by their witty banter. As they talk of their recently deceased friend, "Wee Jimmy", Ger hopes he comes to no harm in the afterlife with the words “may his arse never feel the heat of a flame”. Humour is continually to the fore of recollections concerning Jimmy and his woman friend, a conversation that prompts Iggy and Ger into contemplating the reasons for the absence of women in their own lives. Their discussion is periodically interrupted as the men walk away from the table to partake in the onstage re-enactment of their own private memories: Iggy with his childhood friend John (Conor MacNeill) and Ger with an English girl Dotty (Alice O’Connell).

McElhinney and Johnson give competent performances, but despite their friendship and revelations, there does not appear to be much of a connection between Iggy and Ger. As the characters compete with each other over who has done more damage to their body with alcohol or who has had the toughest job, the conversation seems to fall flat. There is little sense of engagement and the production gives the impression that the actors are merely reciting lines at each other, rather than portraying two characters actively listening and responding.

McCafferty’s script is partly to blame for this problem. While two men in ragged clothes talking about death may sound somewhat Beckettian, this is where the similarities end. In parts, the dialogue feels over-written as does the monologue of Dotty, who wears ruby-red slippers and also wants to escape to a better life. The analogy with the Wizard of Oz is far from subtle. However, Dotty’s interactions with Ger are amusing and O’Connell is great as the flirtatious female who becomes frustrated by Ger’s inability to communicate with women. Unfortunately, under Rachel O’Riordan’s direction, the chemistry and potential for romance between the two is unconvincing.

Themes of masculinity, silence and invisibility are to the fore of the play. Ger tells Dotty that “Belfast men don’t dance”, a line his father used, and offers her a drink instead, while Iggy is forced to leave Belfast because he does not conform to the apparent norms of society. Both men may have lived the majority of their lives away from Belfast, yet they have carried with them the experiences and memories of their formative years, and the change of geographical locale has done little to change their lives.

In recent years, the lives of Irish navvy workers in England have received much attention on stage and screen, and there is a feeling that we have heard many of Ger and Iggy’s stories before. However, McCafferty’s play does add a specifically Belfast dimension to these representations. As Ger longs to return to Belfast for one last drink, he wonders if the city has changed. The Belfast that Iggy and Ger left had particular notions about masculinity, the consumption of alcohol, the treatment of women, and cultures of silence – how does that world compare to a contemporary Belfast? Perhaps, in this linking of past and present, McCafferty raises the most pertinent question of the piece.

Pádraic Whyte is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast.