Opening door to a potent mix

BOUNCERS, George Lawton Hall, Mossley THERE was a time, way back in the Seventies, when the play that made John Godber’s reputation was nothing less than a vision of society’s breakdown, when sex and booze threatened to destroy our young . . . ask any Daily Mail reader.

These days “Bouncers” looks like a nostalgia night for the good old days, when booze and vomit, rather than blood, were the only things likely to make a mess of your good suit.

Godber’s 2007 “remix” version of the fourhanded comedy — in which four actors famously play the club bouncers, the girls, the boys and everyone else, flitting from character to character — didn’t do a lot more than to update the original, written 30 years ago and packed with references to period fashions and tunes. Now it’s R&B, electro-pop and slightly greater world-weariness.

“Bouncers” is a potent mix: hilarious comedy, outrageous situations, grotesque characters and sad reflection: in other words, pretty well every teenager’s really good Friday or Saturday night out.

Lots of laughs come simply from having four fairly hefty-looking performers suddenly swing into being full-on girlies, handbags swinging as they get their hairdos and hope they connect with the man of their dreams.

And with Godber there is never just fun: bouncer Lucky Eric’s four monologues offer little oases of Daily Mail-style “propheteering”.

The four performers in Mossley AODS’s production — Steve Maxfield as Eric, Jon Crebbin as Judd, Russ Learmont as Ralph and Shaun Penton as Les — are perhaps not fully match-fit as real bouncers (though Maxfield has the right barrel-chested look).

But they amply fill the personalities of these less-than sensitive members of any northern town’s low-life wranglers with good timing and general fearlessness — even in their recreation of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video.

Opening night suffered a few minor fluffs and the pace could have been a little quicker, but this could have been partly down to (presumably) director James Schofield’s decision to end many of the little scenes with blackout and occasionally an all-too-empty stage. Generally this is a play that works best by not letting up; by having the actors on stage throughout, changing character without so much as a sharp intake of breath. Anything else just isn’t disco . . .