Bouncers – Leicester Square Theatre, London

Writer: John Godber

Director: Antony Law

Reviewer: Agnes Frimston

The Public Reviews Rating:

John Godber’s comedy was voted one of the greatest plays of the 20th century in a National Theatre poll, so I felt rather ashamed yesterday rocking up to the theatre and having never even heard of it. The rest of the audience didn’t appear to be as ignorant as me though, and the number of 14 year-old boys packed into the basement theatre meant Bouncers has presumably returned to a syllabus somewhere. The four actors, David Bauckham, Antony Law, Simon Higgins and Luke Stevenson, create a lively, vulgar, and at times violent Friday night at Mr. Cinder’s Club, with no sets or props except for four rather naff handbags. It is a model of empty-space theatricality and completely reliant on the individual actors and their ability to keep the audience enraptured. These four chaps conjure a world of hairdressers, northern pubs, urinals and back-street shenanigans, and switch between 3 different foursomes; the girls, the boys, and the bouncers themselves.

The performers were all brilliant. Antony Law also directed the production, and one can tell this is very much his baby: he is the most interactive and engaged with the audience. The cast were energetic and enthusiastic, and kept the audience involved all the way through. My one quibble was that I did feel as if I was being shouted at continually, and I wasn’t even in the front row. This is a tiny theatre, and some of the performances were a little too big at times, as if rehearsed for a much larger space.

Whilst the performances were impressive, I can’t agree that the script is one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. None of the characters ever developed beyond caricatures, especially the women, and although in places it was funny it didn’t tell the audience anything new. Lucky Eric’s musings were there, presumably, to give the play a moral commentary, but they just appeared sentimental and rather unimaginative. But, if exuberance is enough to get through, this certainly did. And it’s definitely worth seeing, especially for the pornographic movie reconstruction, and the cast’s lovely array of tattoos at the end.