BY TITLE and poster design, it appears to be a campaigning play fighting 2,500 UK pub closures a year due to the smoking ban and cheap supermarket booze.

But opened up, this second outing by Everyman Young Writers’ graduate Scott Murphy is about a group of characters all facing change or seeking closure.

After 20 years running a Liverpool boozer, ex-docker and landlord Johnny (John Evans) is calling last orders as the brewery sells out to a property developer. But he is also bidding farewell to his late wife Sheila (laid out in a coffin in the bar) and their prodigal smackhead son Carl (Keir Howard).

Then there’s one-time wannabe priest Dave (Mark Lacey) who hasn’t squared up to his devout Roman Catholic parents for 20 years since losing his faith.

Common sense, to redeem this trio of loser males, is left to the long-suffering women: Johnny’s perky sister-in-law Irene (Katie Tracie) who has lost her son in a car crash; Carl’s more focused partner Rachel (Marie Westcott) and all-round good-egg Christine (Maggie Avinyo).

Amid the chinking glasses and constantly slurped liquor, the offer of reconciliation for lost souls hangs in the air.

Initially, there is too much episodic lurching making the dialogue cliché-dependent.