Good Old Godber Does It Again

Good things are coming thick and fast to the SJT, as the year ascends to its customary climax in the ‘pantoesque’ Christmas show - this year, a sparkling Sleeping Beauty.

The latest from John Godber, the wickedly funny Black Tie Ball, is a great advert for popular theatre and the place was packed. On a literal level, the title is a neat summing up of a play set in a big old hall, in the suburbs of Hull, that has been converted to an hotel and events’ centre where all the people present are formally attired - the posh guests and poorly paid staff alike in their wearing of the ritualistic band, that badge of propriety, round the neck.

But on another level, it’s not without its blacker elements. The four waiting-on, whose story it is - which they perform, narrate and bemoan - might look the part but their hearts are not in it. Pressed into reluctant service at the last moment, they are tired and hungry and run off their feet.

One of them does unspeakable things to the food he’s about to serve to the wedding guests, the manager has locked himself away and is having a nervous breakdown, the band turn up late, drunk and proceed to get stoned. In hospitality and catering terms, it’s a complete and utter disaster and to top it off, a murder occurs - off stage and seemingly of no great magnitude compared with the other abominations.

Not quite full-on Joe Orton black, then, but certainly a lighter pitch!

William Ilkley, who will forever be known for bringing muscle and brawn as well as consummate comic timing to Godber’s most enduring success, Bouncers, was for two decades a stalwart of the Hull Truck Theatre Company. He might have been born for his present role as Ronnie, the irascible ex-miner turned hotel dogsbody. Present at the battle of Orgreave, he is still bitter about pit closures, particularly the last one, Kellingley, which was far from played out. Godber specialises in setting up an apparent stereotype and then teaching us they don’t exist. Who would have thought this big, plain-spoken man with a pithy turn of phrase was an aspiring Shakespearean actor.

Lewis, done to a dozy comic turn by Doncaster-born Levi Payne, is another of Godber’s great staple characters, the one a bit slow to catch on who tends to take a figure of speech at face value. We rather feel his ambition to become an entrepreneur, mightily amusing to Ronnie, is slightly beyond him. The big man is prepared to tolerate him, though, using him as an unwitting straight man, and much of the verbal humour comes from their exchanges.

To say Ronnie does not like Duncan, the brainy but sensitive Ph.D. student, whose qualities are nicely understated by Dylan Allcock, is to put it mildly. The two clash almost from the off and actually we have sympathy for both parties. Jade Farnill excels as the lugubrious Joy, who has troubles enough off her own without having to listen to those of the others. She wants to be a nightclub singer and may well have what it takes but it’s a hard profession to get into, especially if you have a baby at home.

Amidst the chaos all around, the four stereotypes-plus, if that is how we are seeing them, combine remarkably well to bring each other’s mood down - and the running joke is that they stand around most of the night bellyaching about how busy they are. As actors, busy they certainly are, doubling and trebling in a variety of roles, as important guests and band members.

This being Godber, the humour is always tempered with a dose of anger at social injustice and, in this, there is for good measure something of a Feminist diatribe inserted when we least expect it. Perhaps surprisingly, the most articulate summary of the problems that beset the north, that make it unlikely their dreams will come to fruition, comes not from Ronnie but from the mild-mannered Duncan.

He has a precise understanding of the reasons behind what Ronnie might call the oppression of the working class. And it is Duncan who somehow contrives the all-singing, all-dancing resolution to an immediate problem - and the happiest of endings, the cue for tumultuous applause.

This pure Godber is a must-see. Wickedly funny, edgy, gripping, farcical even, it somehow speaks for a current mood in much of the north.

Black Tie Ball, by John Godber, is at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until 15th November.