By one of those quirks that you either love or deem irrelevant, I've just seen two shows in a row with a noose onstage. First there was Sam Simmons’ dark Foster’s Award-winning Soho Theatre show. And then this positively pitch-black piece of theatre by acclaimed writer Martin McDonagh, who most will probably know best for the hit hitman movie In Bruges.

Hangmen, set in the 1960s, starts as it means to go on, with a prison cell stringing-up which is both viciously funny and violently nasty. Convict Hennessy proclaims his innocence but executioner Harry (David Morrissey) does his job, aided by the mousy, stuttering Syd (Reece Shearsmith). Harry is clearly committed to his work and is the second best in the country after Albert Pierrepoint.

Cut to two years later, however, and Harry is running a pub in Oldham. Capital punishment has been abolished and he has had to find a new trade. Slowly, however, his past starts to revisit him. Maybe his profession is the kind of thing you can never quite retire from. 

What happens next happens slowly but deliciously. A mysterious cocky cockney called Mooney rolls into the smoky bar. He is played by Johnny Flynn as if he is a cross between young Michael Caine and Russell Brand via Joe Orton. One moment he is in a rage, then he is flirting with Harry's teenage daughter, then he is namedropping Kierkegaard. 

Harry’s old wingman Syd also reappears. He has done time himself since we last saw him and his friendship with Harry is not exactly cordial. It all seems like too much of a coincidence that all these things are happening at the same time…

In fact these events, and a few others that happen onstage, seem pretty far-fetched in retrospect, but McDonagh’s skill is to write pin-sharp dialogue that draws you right in, so that while you are watch everything that happens is believable. It feels perfectly acceptable for illegal things to take place in this pub even though one of the drinkers is a copper played by Ralph Ineson (aka Finchy from The Office).

Despite the brutal tone Hangmen is a pretty conventional play. There are hints of Pinter and splashes of farce but there is nothing too radical here. It doesn’t really feel like a message play. It doesn’t even seem to be saying a lot about our system of justice except that – no shit Sherlock – taking a life in any circumstances does not solve anything.

But it merits a review here because it is very funny as well as brilliantly performed. Morrissey is compelling as the stolid Harry who wants to be in control at all costs. Shearsmith is extremely good too, scampering around and getting the most laughs, particularly in the second half when the momentum picks up. Flynn is also very watchable - hard to believe he is the same person who starred in C4’s forgettable-apart-from-the-title Scrotal Recall.

Given McDonagh's track record this might well end up as a film. But don't hang around until it hits your multiplex, grab a ticket now.

Until Oct 10. Tickets here.