For some 40 minutes of nostalgia blended with sentiment, Sean Lawlor's The Watchman, playing at the Focus at lunchtime, is a pleasant and still relevant revival. Set in the late 1980s, the eponymous narrator's current job is minding the excavations at Dublin's Wood Quay, where new civic offices are at war with old Viking sites and their conservationists.

He is not neutral in this, being a lover and student of his native city and its history. Between sips from a noggin of whiskey, he speaks of the sights, sounds and smells of Dublin, of the days when the city teemed with horse traffic and Roy Rogers and Trigger came to play the Theatre Royal. It was a smaller, more intimate place then, before suburbs began to sprawl to the horizon.

His own life, as a boy messenger on a bike, four years labouring in London, back to Dublin digging roads, marriage and the loss of his wife are woven into the narrative. And here he is, on the last lap, perhaps looking as if he is doing nothing, but really thinking about all the things he could do, spinning it out to the end.

The author's style, heightened in the O'Casey manner, is a nice fit for the material, and he acts the role himself with a simpatico flair. Donald Gibson directs, and there is an atmospheric set by Shanas Attar.