Bouncers by John Godber

Produced, directed and performed by Gambolling Arena Theatre Co.

Arts Bar Studio 3 Theatre

Thursday 20th June 2024

By Ted Grant

I read with interest recently that Liverpool’s Hot Water Comedy Club is now the biggest of its kind in the world. Over time is has outgrown several smaller venues and is now housed in Blackstock Market with space for a thousand boozed-up punters to enjoy a proper night out. A success story in post-covid Britain with a cost-of-living crisis still lingering and a signifier that the urge to escape and be entertained is perhaps more a necessity than a frivolous impulse.

John Godber’s Bouncers endures because it feels more like an experience, than a trip to the theatre. A play, if you can call it that, more for the clubber than the chin stroker. Moreover, it has become a global phenomenon because, it would seem, the desire to hear about people drinking, fighting and shagging is primal and universal, comfortably transcending its quintessentially northern milieu. And just like many of the jokes served up at the comedy club it feels like there’s a welcome sense of permission to laugh at the risqué, tawdry and grotesque.

Before the show starts in earnest, our Bouncers are already in character; eying people suspiciously as they arrive, checking people’s footwear, one punter is reprimanded for wearing a baseball cap. Circular tables are laid out in the auditorium with people sat around them, eschewing the traditional theatre layout for a club-like aesthetic. Chic’s Le Freak and Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing pump out to get us all in the mood. Slowly but surely our suit-clad Bouncers, the original men in black, get in to position on stage and there’s a hush. You don’t mess with these guys. And the roller-coaster of a classic Friday night on the town begins.

Lucky Eric (John Coates), Judd (Christopher James), Ralph (Leo Hewitson) and Les (Lee Craig) take us on a journey that incorporates the full gamut of incidents and accidents of a Friday night with all the obligatory blood, sweat and, er, vomit, that entails. But it’s not just through the eyes of our security guards that we see what unfolds. We enjoy the company of Maureen, Cheryl, Elaine and Rosie too, gearing up for the evening’s frivolities at the local hairdresser. In a parallel scene we cut to Terry, Jerry, Kev and Baz in the barbers. Four likely lads we periodically encounter on a mission to throw as much lager down their neck as possible whilst chanting football songs and hoping to pull a bit of skirt. There are other characters too. A pair of punks are given short shrift when they try and enter the club. Wak and Wak, two scousers on a stag do: they’re not getting in. Rules is rules, lads.

With Bouncers, a huge commercial and critical success, comes a degree of pressure for any theatre company to do the piece justice. And while the play needs to entertain there are moments of solemnity that require a sensitive and thoughtful touch. Beneath the bravado of Bouncers there is pathos and an understated social commentary that gives the play surprising weight - more on this later. The mechanics of the play are complex too. As noted, our four titular bouncers are required to multi-role, frequently and quickly, demanding considerable physical and mental dexterity.

Well, there are no doubts the play certainly entertained. Bouncers demands vigour, energy and physicality from the outset and the choreographed intro satisfies all that. You can tell the audience has bought in. The story-telling is animated and passionate and the multi-roling is, by and large, very effective. The women are brilliantly played, with gusto and charm and the lads out on the razz are suitably obnoxious and lairy. Lee Craig has the DJ voice down pat, Christopher James’ Turkish barber is wonderfully convincing with shades of Pop from The League of Gentlemen, and we see Leo Hewitson really come in to his own in Act Two as a hilariously realised Swedish postman in a low budget porn movie. Yes, Bouncers is as bonkers as it sounds! Because of the pacing of the play nobody expects full costume changes but an extra prop or mime here or there, or some kind of stylised signifier, to tell us who we’re looking at wouldn’t have gone amiss to enhance the overall experience. The punks, for example, don’t quite convince. I’m nitpicking though.

The energy and intensity never let up and there’s barely a line dropped, which is remarkable given the complexity and fast-natured pace of the dialogue and storytelling. This allied to the physicality and banging soundtrack make for an intoxicating experience. And then there’s Lucky Eric and his ‘speeches’ (four in total). These lend the play not just a personal angle – he’s a troubled soul who struggles at the sight of his ex-wife in a club being surrounded by other men - but also a socio-political one. Questions are raised around exploitation of women, misogyny and mis-directed masculinity. And perhaps a half-accusatory prod at the role of government in society. “The working class with no options left, exposing its weakness”, may be the most potent line in the whole play. These monologues are delivered thoughtfully and poignantly and with just the required gravitas by John Coates.

Odd moments are lost. In Act Two, particularly, the music and diction clashed. While I understand the need to create the club atmosphere there were times where I was struggling to hear the actors above the music. I also thought that when the bouncers, or lads, were being their misogynistic and sizeist worst, the actors held back slightly, as though they were unsure of themselves. In the universe of Bouncers, save perhaps Lucky Eric, these opinions are proud and unfettered. There were magazines, too, that were either of the wrong era or were the wrong kind, plus jokes (‘The Elephant Man cut’) that probably should be consigned to the dustbin.

Overall, though, this was a triumph. A rip-roaring journey through clubland and beyond masterfully delivered by a very talented cast. The direction is unfussy, the tight stage at Arts Bar Studio Three plus the nature of the script and the rapid interchanging of characters doesn’t allow for much scope beyond what we saw. For some, the language may jar in the 21st century, but Bouncers is a play that simply shines a light on club culture and gender identity through its characters and raises pertinent political questions that still resonate today. And it’s also deeply entertaining, and in our current climate, we need to be entertained more than ever. As the show wrapped up, Lucky Eric, stepped out of character and thanked the audience for supporting local theatre. Well, thank you to Gambolling Arena Theatre Company for taking us on the wild and wondrous ride that was Bouncers.