The league against Christmas - Michael Curtin

A brilliant farce from the master of comic intrigue and, in Roddy Doyle's words, 'the creator of some of the best barmen in modern literature - Michael Curtin.'

The King's Head Solo school - Bateman, Foster, Ellis, Gosling, Hayhurst (they play dealer out, hence five of them) - form an improbable league against Christmas, resolving to spend the time in a symbolic robbery of the diddly club funds in rural Mellick, Co Mayo. But when you ask a social misfit (Bateman), an accountant who likes to cross-dress (Foster), a salesman who carries a piece of lino with him everywhere (Ellis), the King's Head potman (Gosling), and the thrusting editor of Unipolitan woman's magazine (Hayhurst) to carry out the deed a glorious farce is sure to follow. Also hot in pursuit are two misguided police officers, convinced that the King's Head Solo school are in fact terrorist bombers and one Chippendale of a Garda, who happens also to have been 'the best fuckin barman in London'. A nostalgic tribute to the vileness of the 1980s, when the only consolation to be found was a hand of cards in a shabby pub in Sherpherd's Bush - with all that might lead to