AND so farewell Spring Street, the converted church hall home to Hull Truck since 1983. Hello this spring to Ferensway, the new state-of-the-theatre Truck stop.

Ironically, it does not matter where you stage John Godber’s Bouncers: all you need is two beer barrels, four handbags, a sticky disco floor, one heap of imagination and lashings of sweat on Pip Leckenby’s perfunctory set. Oh, and a cracking good cast to play the testy nightclub doormen, the lager lads and the partying girls of Nightclub Britain.

Godber liked them so much, he brought back the company from the 30th anniversary tour of Bouncers two years ago: Marc Bolton’s jumpy Ralph; Matthew Booth as lads’ lad Les; big Jack Brady’s Judd, the over-eager contender for top dog; and James Hornsby as Lucky Eric, the worn old stag given to bursting into monologues almost as often as Hamlet.

As always, Godber’s Bouncers remix has moved with the times, updating the nightclub soundtrack, keeping abreast of bouncer fashion – all black, no bow tie – and acknowledging the changing habits of clubbers. Amid the din, the lads now arrange drinks rounds on their mobiles, fights are recorded on them too, and Lucky Eric not only rails against the rising club culture of drugs, guns and packs of girls giving doormen grief, he wields a baseball bat too. No wonder he might just pack it all in for his sanity.

Yet the comedy components remain the same: the four story-telling bouncers play all the roles, male and female, thick and thin. Dim punks and a toff twit still pop in for their cameos, although they have the whiff of the museum about them, whereas Nobby the blue-movie Swedish postman and the greasebag DJ (Bolton’s piece de resistance) are as welcome as ever.

Writer-director Godber has named this cast as his favourite four for its grasp of the darker, more disturbing elements, a perception that bears fruit in the second half, although Hornsby’s monologues sometimes feel more avuncular than menacing or despairing.

Wherever Hull Truck plays, Bouncers will keep bouncing back, re-fitted and re-booted for the times. In the meantime, tickets for this Spring Street farewell are such hot property, the bouncers may need all their diplomacy on the door to maintain order.


Bouncers, Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, until February 14. Box office: 01482 323638, probably for disappointment only, such is the ticket demand.