The Stage

Bouncers

Published Monday 19 January 2009 at 11:05 by Kevin Berry

Queuing began at 5.30am when tickets first went on sale for this final production at Hull Truck’s Spring Street theatre and there are long waiting lists for every performance.

John Godber’s Bouncers just had to be the last hurrah at the old ‘blue shed’. It is easily his most popular play and only ever needs a music remix and slight updating. The cast from the Bouncers 30th anniversary tour, of two years ago, has been brought back and obviously needed no encouragement.

These bouncers are exceptionally mean and they have eschewed bow ties, the uniform of many previous productions, for black tee shirts. All look as if they have spent hours in the gym. The air is heavy with threats and then these same hard nuts pantomime the antics of giggly girls and imitate young lads on the razzle.

Matthew Booth is by turns sharp and dismissive and Marc Bolton seethes and preens. Jack Brady postures aggressively and then gets affectionate audience sympathy as a fat girl who is rejected. James Hornsby’s Lucky Eric, a deeply disturbed man, sums up the emptiness of this world with his Greek chorus speeches. These actors hold a mirror to clubbing life and leave no detail out. Their performances will be firmly etched in many, many memories.

Godber has the cast moving with vigorous precision and then with potent comic detail. It is perhaps the best choreographed and best paced show he has put together as a director. Graham Kirk’s lighting of the dank atmosphere is exactly what the show needs.