The Stage

Doorman/Bouncer

Published Thursday 5 May 2005 at 10:40 by Marjorie Bates Murphy

After a decade of bouncing for some of the toughest clubs in the land, Bafta-winner Geoff Thompson wrote his first play which, in this double-bill, is followed by a short film. In Doorman, the play, Craig Conway uncovers the rip-roaring violence that daylight never sees.

Michael Vale, as director/designer, fits out the stage with overturned furniture, amid walls and floor generously spattered with blood.

Conway’s portrayal of a doorman at first shows compassion for the patrons until his soul is laid bare and “physicality transcends the need to speak”. Booming club music, scored by Phelan Kane and Steve Hopwood, beats deep into his brain.

He tells funny, black, bitter jokes of everyday incidents which brutalise him. By using his coat as a pillow and lying down on his bench, he lets us see that his desperation has brought him to prison. The story of not being able to wash the blood, flesh, vomit, urine and occasional tooth from his socks echoes the way he has absorbed every drop of his dire experience. Conway shows the once normal man whose fist now has a homing device.

Bouncer, the film starring Ray Winstone, reveals a group of doormen laughing outside a club. The camera gives a closer, shorter concise portrait of a similar situation to Doorman, again devised by Geoff Thompson. Later, as we see Winstone weight training, the focus moves to show that he too has ended up in prison.