Review: Bouncers (Touring)

Friday, 5th April 2024 at York Theatre Royal

⭐️⭐️⭐️

John Godber’s Bouncers remains a show which brings in audiences time and again, with a fresh tour launching fairly regularly over the years. With its sharp observations of club culture, gender politics and dynamics within the meat market that is a night on the town, this play easily retains its appeal.

Graham Kirk’s set design sets us up in a single vision which doesn’t change: old school sparkly fringe dangles from a neon sign; beer barrels and a bit of greenery linger either side. This is club life on a budget in the 1980’s. Bouncers is such a great play in part because it gives actors a real playground, giving casts a variety of roles to play and inviting voice work and physicality to distinguish between them rather than relying on costuming and props – and mining incongruous visuals along the way for additional layers of comedy.

We first meet four bouncers on their night shift, and those four become blokes ready to get tanked up and get lucky, lasses keen for a good time and a host of other club characters who interact along the way – with many a comic caricature indulged as we go. When it comes to the bouncers, there’s plenty of comic potential. Frazer Hammill’s fiery Lucky Eric doesn’t enjoy the gleeful rib-digging he gets from Tom Whittaker’s scrappy Ralph. George Reid’s Les on the other hand seems to have just one hope for this shift: giving some drunkards a good kicking just as soon as they provide the opportunity. Nick Figgis’ Judd is the ineffectual peace-keeper type which is far outshone by Judd’s take on the flirty scouse lass and the mumbling DJ.

The cast do well to shift between characters at speed, entertaining just as much with their musical segues as their fleshed out roles. Highlights include the inspired blue movie sequence (brilliantly lit by Graham Kirk’s gently flickering design), the desperate 2am bottom-of-the-barrel scenes and peacock choreography from Lynette Linton accompanying some great snatches of 80s classics. And without reliance on costume or props as tools, the cast lean heavily on miming: hair styling, cigs, drinks, mohicans and invisible dance partners are all conjured through movement and suggestion.

I’m not totally sure why, but this production struggles to impress as much as previous productions have, and laughs felt fewer. Maybe I’ve just seen it a few too many times now to access the shock factor, or the script has been funnier in earlier renditions, or I’ve seen all other productions in smaller spaces, making the characters truly larger than life in all their silliness and grotesqueness. I suspect it comes down to a sense of the characters not being big enough here – the performances are perfectly fitting, but the physicality doesn’t go far enough (and the high tally of mime-reliant gags therefore don’t always land) and the voices don’t hit a strong enough impact or volume and so lack the needed magnetism. It’s still undoubtedly a funny production, and Godber’s writing is still given space to shine, but it definitely feels more restrained than it should.

This latest tour is directed by Jane Thornton and includes a a fair few edits compared to previous productions as far as I can tell. I seem to vaguely recall some stronger insults and more objectionable language in other productions but this time around there seems to be less of that. Even with edits though, Godber’s writing has a real knack for capturing the comedy in interactions and dynamics within social spaces, whether it’s frenemies or alpha lads on a night out, or folk stuck on a shift with relative strangers.

The observational nature is brilliant and the nostalgic household name-dropping is perfectly positioned to act as hilariously familiar touchstones. But the observational style also extends beyond comedy, with intermittent monologues offering social commentary on the behaviours we see or hear about, with some key moments hitting even harder than they did before thanks to the troubled social climate we continue to wade through.

Ultimately, it’s in the ever shifting dynamics between strangers and friends alike that Godber’s writing really tickles audiences. The play continues to appeal because we continue to recognise the dynamics at play, so as long as club culture, rowdy friendships and blind lust co-exist, Bouncers will surely continue to appeal to audiences for a good night out.

Bouncers is at York Theatre Royal until April 6th 2024 – more information and tickets can be found here. Information and tickets for the wider tour can be found here.

Images: Liam Foster