Thursday 7th June 2018 at the Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds.
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This is not the first time Bite My Thumb have produced John Godber’s Bouncers, and it shows. This is a very finely tuned production in which the cast of four know where the laughs are, and beeline for them with complete confidence.
Set in and around a nightclub, it’s easy to guess at some of the characters and plot points we might be greeted with, but unless you know the play or the playwright already, there’s little to prepare you for this show and the lengths it goes to for laughs. Eighties born and bred, Bouncers is The Inbetweeners before The Inbetweeners; it’s Some Girls before Some Girls; it’s more than once akin to The Young Ones in characterisations and it sees little to nothing as off-limits. As the eighties hits play on a loop, we meet the bouncers on the door, keeping order, putting the world to rights and night-dreaming of better things for themselves…or at least some sort of action on the horizon; a leg-up or a bust-up if you please…
Bouncers quickly whips a rope around us and drags us way down into the very depths of clubbing shenanigans. As with Shakers, Bouncers flits between gaggles of men and women all supposedly existing in the same space; our actors are wild women one minute and lusty menfolk who can’t pee in a straight line the next, before returning to the core roles of the bouncers outside. Knipe demonstrates a wonderful directorial flair for transitions with some excellent synchronised sequences and great physicality.
Richard Billings is the standout as Lucky Eric (and others). Billings conquers female roles, accents, choreography, comedy and drama and it’s his Eric alone who takes centre stage in a series of brief but angst-fuelled monologues lamenting the state of society as seen through the scope of the club scene. His rage is as compelling as the comedy and his physicality is spot on with each shifting character – if anyone took more than their fair share of my laughter, it was Billings.
Ben Chamberlain’s Les carries unnerving undertones of being fit to combust at any moment and being oddly predatory towards others in what seems to be an implication of him being an under-sexed closeted soul. Chamberlain lands Les’ odd lines beautifully and he also gains plenty of the big laughs as the high-pitched tipsy female.
Simon Reece gives fantastic performances as both bouncer Judd and the undesirable young lass with a voice like one of Homer’s chain smoking sisters. Along with Billings, he is probably the biggest comic talent to be seen in this production. Neil Knipe’s Ralph is something of a peace keeper with a paradoxical need to prove himself, ninja style, amongst the bouncer team, but Knipe really proves himself in the swift shifts between women, men and… porn star.
One thing is for sure here: Godber’s tongue-in-cheek vision of northern night life is not for the faint of heart. There are some questionable and downright offensive moments in the script, and while the decision to be true to an original script and make no revisions for modern audiences will always be up for debate, the casual homophobia, racism and misogyny thesaurus used might be a bit much for some.
That said, in a script which favours profanity in place of punctuation and proves itself merciless to all in a blanket fashion, it’s clearly of its time and many will say it should be taken at face value and enjoyed as nothing more than a glimpse of another era. Yet it also undeniably offers up a very recognisable modern vision too: of young (and not so young) people seeking connection in the most hilarious or grotesque of ways. Perhaps the play is asking if grubby club culture ever really changes. Does the grim language and behaviour of the young and the randy ever change? Is all this not just a timeless rite of passage with the only differences being the sexual slang being used and the tunes played by the dodgy DJ?
My only real issue is with the decision to include an audience member in a group chat-up scene. To have the cast crowd around and lean over a young female on the front row to chat her up is one thing, but to use the particular chat up lines of Godber at this particular point is another…and it made for uncomfortable viewing. For me, it was funny while it was upstage and removed; less so when an unassuming member of the public is publicly accosted with decidedly dodgy lines… 
On the flip side, there are some thoroughly hilarious moments here – the humour is smutty and outlandish but not without wit and intelligence. I laughed a lot. The highlights are many and the laughter is plentiful – if you get a chance to catch this, do!
Bouncers has one final date to play on its current tour (June 22nd 2018) and you can find information here.
Always Time For Theatre 