McCafferty's break-through play, a tender and comic portrait of love, dignity and emotional damage.

Vera is feisty but fading, Ronnie is washed up and permanently half-drunk. Together they run a grubby pub/hotel in present-day Belfast. It is a refuge for the assorted regulars who wash up there, as well as its rickety owners. Today is a day like many before, turning groggily into a night which might erode everyone's ability to cope with each other, or themselves.

Owen McCafferty's play Closing Time was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in September 2002.