In a flat in Dublin’s North West Inner City, Decko and Matty are in trouble.  Decko’s cocaine-dealing business is under threat from a vicious and unscrupulous younger rival the Jelly Tott. Matty is even worse off, wheelchair-bound and close to losing his one true love, Niamh, to the same devious Jelly Tott. They used to have their  friendship to give them strength, but as the pressure mounts and hidden truths emerge about how Matty got injured and why Decko’s hiatus hernia won’t get any better, the two men’s shared future gets thrown into a tailspin that looks like leaving the Jelly Tott as the winner.

A deeply dark comedy about the fragility of love and loyalty in a world where success is measured by how far you push others down, ‘On The Batter’ is the new full-length play from The Complex writer-in-residence Anthony Goulding. A native

of O’Devaney Gardens in the North-West Inner City, Goulding has been working as a professional writer since his first play ‘Green’ was nominated for Best New Play in the Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards  1997. In 2009 he wrote the cult hit ‘Complexity’ which became The Complex’s very first production in Smithfield.

‘On The Batter’ is full of his trademark wit, with dialogue as sharp as glass and a cast of damaged characters locked in an emotional pressure-cooker, fighting for survival with only their nostalgia and their values, conditioned by years of mistrust, to guide them.