Shakespeare, Synge and Tarantino rub together to produce sparks in Martin McDonagh’s 1997 play; but in Catriona Craig’s revival they never catch alight. The second work in the author’s Leenane Trilogy is like a lurid cartoon, in which misty tourist-eye visions of a mythical, romantic Ireland are obliterated by a depiction of rural life blighted by boredom, vengeful spite and violence, and sodden with poteen. McDonagh’s writing is visceral, rhythmic and deliciously macabre. But, despite some fine acting, Craig’s staging doesn’t reach the required dionysiac frenzy.

Yet the ironic juxtaposition of the savage and the banal still yields some horrible humour. Dan Mullane’s Mick Dowd is an alcoholic gravedigger whose grisly task, every seven years, is to disinter the bones in the graveyard to make way for the Grim Reaper’s latest crop. This time round, though, one of the corpses due to be dug up is that of his former wife, Oona — and local gossip has it that Mick himself split her skull open. He refutes this: she was killed in a car crash with Mick at the wheel — “pure drink-driving” he insists, as if that makes it perfectly all right.

So, with his witless young assistant Mairtin, Mick sets about unearthing the remains of Oona and others before the pair seize mallets and top the night off with an orgy of drunken, testosterone-fuelled bone-smashing.

Mullane’s Mick has a brooding, devil-driven quality and a morbid wit, and Jack Bence is hilarious as the gangling eejit Mairtin. There’s nastily fine work, too, from Lucia McAnespie as Mairtin’s vicious, freeloading granny, whose heroes are Jesus and Eamonn Andrews. Despite her air of Roman Catholic sanctimony, McAnespie brims with viciousness, greeting every arising conflict with lip-licking glee.

But the great, red, blood-filled balloon that Craig and McDonagh inflate, rather than bursting in gory glory, begins to leak post-interval, losing its bounce as its skin slackens. We don’t care about Mick’s possible guilt, or whose head might be stoved in next. McDonagh’s impish delight in shock tactics starts to look faintly juvenile.

That lack of real dramatic substance is problematic; the style, though, remains exuberant.

Box office: 020-8237 1111, to July 26

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