IN A murky bar over ceaseless games of pool and rounds of beers, four British Asian men realise their friendships are not everything they seem.

As cultural expectations bear down on them, the alcohol-fuelled banter of the show’s characters changes into something more sinister.

The quartet are meeting on the anniversary of their friend’s death, an annual event that brings them together in their home town.

Their lives having taken different directions – work, family, religion – tensions old and new start to simmer over as the drinks start to flow.

The show takes themes such as friendship, smalltown ennui and cultural perception and weaves them around a story that unfolds darkly and ominously.

The momentum of the narrative accelerates as each player steps up to the pool table and reveals their own secrets, culminating in the revelation that all was not as it seemed with their pal’s death.

With just one set, no interval and just four characters (OK, five, the barman does well pulling the drinks) a lot hangs on the play’s dialogue and the actors’ interaction.

That it succeeds is the truest testament to the strength of the performances and the razorsharp (and utterly profane) script.

Ishy Din’s play, showing at Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre again tonight, is funny and moving in equal measure.

Giving timely insight into the complex lives of young Muslims – part of a ‘snookered’ generation – this performance is modest in production but big in impact.