CROOKS in the night! Listen to Rommel Rommel, a refreshingly politically incorrect radio drama.

IF YOU COULD suspend moral and politically correct imperatives for the duration of Guy Ritchie’s 1998 comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, you will absolutely relish the texture and narrative, the drama and gruff sweetness of Lee Doubell’s Afrikaans language radio drama that broadcasts on Radio Sonder Grense after the 9pm news on Thursday April 26. Entitled Rommel, Rommel, it’s a very well scripted little piece of doggerel which offers a back story to some common or garden crooks that will absolutely endear you to them.

Between men known only as “Meneer” (Johan Botha), “Oom” (Charl van Heyningen) and “Spiekeries” (Petrus du Preez), “Laaitie” (Leon Kruger) is a novice with his mum at the end of the cell phone, poised on a career of crookery, or rather something a little deeper and dirtier than the farm horizons in which he was born and nourished. And nourishment is the operative word. The men are busy plotting a ‘job’ that will yield nicely for the four of them. If it succeeds, that is.

And there unfolds a narrative of contingency plans and technological by-passes, of the possibilities of making it big and of those of walking away slowly and anonymously. It’s a little lacking in hairpin bends, but the root of the work is watered and nurtured by the intrinsic virtues of these characters, who are crafted beautifully in these 45 minutes. You can picture them in your mind’s eye like you would cartoon characters. They’re the gruff, rough stereotypes, the proverbial Bob Rebadow and Agamemnon Busmalis of the 1990s HBO prison drama, Oz, who might boast tough histories, but really are utter sweethearts who can make you melt with the realness of their values.

It’s a work clean of political jibes or moral shudders and is simply about the excitement and magic of a job well pulled off. It’s a work that will start your long weekend with a broad grin, leaving you rooting for the blokes on the other side of the law.

• Rommel, Rommel (Rubbish, Rubbish) is written by Lee Doubell, one of the winners of the 2017 Sanlam Radio Theatre competition. Directed by Eben Cruywagen, and featuring technical input by Ricardo McCarthy, it is performed by Ivan Abrahams, Johan Botha, Lida Botha, Petrus du Preez, Keenan Herman, Leon Kruger and Charl van Heyningen, and debuts on RSG on Thursday April 26 at 9:10pm; it will be rebroadcast in the radio’s Deurnag programme, on Monday April 30 at 1am. It’s also available on podcast: rsg.co.za