Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Simon O’Brien, Neville Cann, Benjamin Engelen, John F. Doull.

There are many sides to a city or town but the main difference is between its day time appearance, perhaps full of shoppers, workers and casual visitors and then its late time manifestation, its night life where the rules of the day go out the window and out comes the darker side of drink, drugs and wild abandonment in which we all try to forget the menace of the day.  Voiced by some of the inhabitants of the night, John Godber’s Bouncers is not only a knock out look at some of the funnier aspects of this time of day but perhaps the best kind of social comment that gets too often neglected.

With a superb cast that more rose to the occasion, the St. Helens Theatre Royal and the audience were treated to various characters that make this world tick along but none so entertaining as the four bouncers that restrict entry into the nightclub where everybody is heading. Les, Lucky Eric, Ralph and Judd are the men that hold the door firmly in place or open it gradually, sometimes with a motive that is unexplained and unexplainable, to reveal the shining light beyond.

All four actors played every single part on offer, whether it is the women out to be treated in a better way than they might expect, the young lads whose normal caution goes out the same way as the many pints of lager they drink or the philosophical nature of the bouncers, in which John F. Doull as Lucky Eric was on exceptional form as he captured the essence of one who has realised he has become too old for it all and his short monologues held the hidden gem that framed the play neatly in place.

Bouncers is one of those outstanding productions, directed in this particular case superbly by Sylvia Gatrill, that really does hammer home a message as well as giving the audience an evening to remember, a comedy that makes you welcome, frisks you for a sense of humour and sends you home from your seat with a smile.

Ian D. Hall