In the back room of a 1950s Soho nightclub, a group of smartly-dressed two-bit gangsters spend a lot of time waiting, until it turns out that, offstage, there’s been a grisly murder which has them at sixes and sevens.

The fast-paced script of the play Mojo by Jez Butterworth, rich with expletives and poetic Cockney language, sees the gang members working out what to do, comforted by an endless supply of little pills to pop.

The setting is the rock ‘n’ roll era of the 1950s but the focus is not on music – although the nightclub’s golden goose, the singer Silver Johnny, is a byword for how music and money go together.

Rather, the play is a battle of power, with ambitious Mickey flailing as he faces up against the wildcard, the psychotic Baby. It’s the perfect vehicle for a tight cast of male players acting out an idiosyncratic brand of “fragile masculinity.”

Audiences can expect fast, violent action and grim humour in a script which, when it premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1995, was billed as a black comedy.

It’s staged by in-demand Canberra director Lachlan Houen in his directorial debut at the ACT Hub venue in Kingston. The voice and text coach for the demanding Cockney dialogue is Sarah Chalmers.

Mojo is not part of ACT Hub’s official season, but is rather a co-production with Red Herring Theatre Company, part of the Hub’s mission to demonstrate confidence in and support of emerging artists in the Canberra community.

Red Herring was established last year by Canberra theatre artist Lachlan Herring, last seen in Chaika’s Mary Stuart and Everyman’s The Inheritance at ACT Hub. Recently back from studies at 16th Street Actors Studio in Melbourne, Herring returned to Canberra to set up his company, with Mojo as its inaugural work. He also plays the terrifying Baby.

Mojo, ACT Hub, 14 Spinifex Street, Kingston, until February 1.