Bouncers Contextualising the Play Essay examples -- English Literature

Bouncers Contextualising the Play John Godber was born the son of a miner in Upton, West Yorkshire in 1956. He became a very successful playwright with popular plays such as ‘On the Piste’ and ‘Up n’ Under’ and TV shows like Grange Hill and Brookside. He is known most for his comedy but he has shown in a number of his productions that he includes seriousness alongside comedy for optimum effect. His plays are performed all over the world and have won many awards including five at the Edinburgh fringe festival. However, for some, Bouncer’s is regarded as Godber’s finest work. The inspiration of which came from a club called Kiko’s in Pontefract- it had the added bonus of having fake palm trees on the dance floor! As a political play, we see Bouncers as being quite prominent in that it was published whilst the famed ‘drinking culture’ of Britain was being hyped up to an unprecedented level. Obviously, like nowadays, the government wanted to stamp out what was a big problem. Godber’s comedy in the play exposes a much more profound subject whilst also showing the stereotypical nature of what the youth of the day did. In the lads, the girls and the bouncers Godber tries to convey that these characters are typical of Britain. He shows the funny side of the way in which young people act whilst also unearthing a more sinister subject in suggesting that drink is changing the nation. We see it in all of the characters. For example, the lads were talking amongst themselves very nicely before they go, however, once they leave, a fight breaks out in the club when they have had a little too much to drink. This is typical of the time and many people were actually getting killed because of serious over drinking or get... ...etting drunk regularly in the public eye. Whilst we see people like these have an effect on teens today, in Godber’s time he would have seen the beginning of the problems snowball throughout his life. You can only address the problem like Godber has done and bring it further into the limelight; you can’t stop it with one play. For me, the play is probably even more prominent today than for any other generation beforehand. The problem has really come to a cross roads at which we need to deal with it properly. As Godber shows in the play, it is not really the fact that they get so drunk and out of control, it is the fact that they go out there for the soul reason to get really drunk. He shows us that in order to get rid of the problem, you need to firstly address the way in which people think of alcohol before seeing the next generations outlook’s change.