Shakers & Bouncers - Review

Bouncers, first performed in 1977, provides a wonderful opportunity for male actors to show off their acting skills and ability to switch effortless between multi-roles.

The play depicts a typical Friday night at a disco/nightclub and it does so with hilarious effect.

In addition to the security doormen the cast of four men play all the other parts. One moment they are the brutish bouncers and the next they are the dozy lads out for booze and birds. And at the drop of a handbag they becoming the ditzy birds also out for a goodtime and possibly love.

The success of Bouncers, I understand, led to demands from female performers that they be given a similar vehicle that would challenge their skills. Hence Shakers was born and the world of a cocktail bar laid bare.

Acting dexterity, equal to that required by the male cast, is also needed by the four girls in Shakers who portray not only cocktail waitresses but supermarket checkout girls preparing for a night out. They also get to play the male customers with their various degrees of obnoxiousness.

Whilst there is plenty of fun in this play, serious threads are aired as each girl is given a soliloquy to reveal their secret thoughts, dreams and fears.

By the nature of the settings for each play and the worlds explored there are times when similar threads appeared in each piece and a slight case of deja vue was experienced. In view of this I did momentarily wonder at the wisdom of playing the two pieces in tandem.

There may have been similarities but there were major differences between the two plays. Bouncers, I felt, was the stronger of the two and was hilarious where as Shakers, by comparison, was merely funny. The difference was accounted for in the writing. The personalities of the four bouncers, compared with the waitresses, were shallow and crude caricatures. With a small exception there was no serious side to them and we learnt little about them as individuals with the result that we did not care about them.

The opposite occurred in Shakers – because we heard their soliloquies we were able to see them as people that we could recognise and sympathise with. Therefore there was a different mood about this piece – a mood that tamped down the humour slightly.

Another difference was in the performances. Not wishing to detract from the fine work put in by the girls but Bouncers had the edge. Men being women is far more hilarious than the reverse. I know that I am going to have great difficulty in taking Andy Bell’s future performances seriously. Images of his Sexy Susan are still flashing across my mind now!

His performance was matched by those of Doug Devaney, Ben Pritchard and Darren Cockrill as they flitted seamlessly between their butch and camp roles.

Each actress, in addition to their minor roles, excelled in their monologues - Anna Bolwell as she spoke of the abortion she had been through and the dilemma of whether or not to tell her latest love. The loss of the child explained the antagonism with Anna-Marie Hiscock’s Adele, a single mum so desperate to hang on to her job that she is prepared to do any task required by the management.

Lisa Feldman’s Nicky and Melody Roche’s Mel were nicely contrasted – Nicky, about to embark on a show business career, was full of hope but plagued with doubt and fear whilst Mel was strongly determined to succeed in her dream of becoming a successful photographer.

Both casts did full justice to the material and their directors, Louise Gregory and Mark Green, to whom special congratulations must go for the skilful way that they choreographed the slick movements that allowed the cast to segue between characters and location.

Barrie Jerram
20 November 2007