Back in the good old days Friday was pay-day and Friday night the big night out of the week – probably the only one. But now Monday is the new Friday and so is Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest of the week. Now, with monthly salaries being paid directly into banks and no restriction on drinking times or places, Friday has lost its pre-eminence as Big Night Out.
John Godber’s 1977 play Bouncers tells the story of one such Friday night in a typical city, somewhere up north. The cast of four, dressed in black ties and dinner jackets but still managing to look scruffy, play the bouncers in question, as well as a group of lads hell bent on a few jars and a grope, four lasses hell bent on a few Babychams and getting groped, plus a few other odd characters who present themselves at the door the bouncers are minding.
This is well observed stuff and very funny. It is in your face humour – but not only in your face; it’s on your shoes and all down your front as well. All human excretions and bodily fluids are here, very little is left unsaid or undemonstrated. Funny it may be but not everybody’s cup of tea – the seats next to me were empty after the interval.
The four bouncers, all beautifully played by Robert Hudson, Adrian Hood, Frazer Hammill and Chris Hannon, were a bit like the seven dwarves. There was Hudson’s Lucky Eric the older, wiser one who had three downstage, sage and meaningful speeches, there was the flash chancer, played by Chris Hannon, whose best other character was the slimy DJ from whom Jimmy Savile could have learned a few tricks and there was the younger newish kid on the block, Les, who was always keen to get the boot in. Adrian Hood was convincing as the inevitable dopey one, Judd.
The simple presentation (four aluminium beer kegs and a neon sign) and beautiful lighting by Graham Kirk made the show very attractive to look at. John Godber, who also directed the play, squeezed every last ounce of laughter out of Bouncers. I loved the aforementioned DJ but the other two scenes which had tears rolling down my cheeks were the four girls dancing with their gold lamé purses at their feet trying to sing along with Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ Come On Eileen and the four lads lined up across the front of the stage peeing onto the front row of the stalls – miming it, I hasten to add.
One scene that was firmly set in the seventies, in the days before BluRay, DVDs and even VHS, was when the bouncers sat watching a porno movie clustered round a Super 8 projector (if that means nothing to any of you, ask your parents – about Super 8, I mean, not the porno). The action was played out under a flickering light and then all done again backwards as the film was rewound. Clever stuff.
Although it lacked any great depth or social comment there were a lot of shrewd and true observations in Bouncers, as true today as they were nearly forty years ago. The difference is that now there are young male and female drunks on every street and bouncers on every block in every town every night of the week, – at least, there are down our way. ★★★★☆ Michael Hasted 22/01/15
