Tag Archives: Paul Broughton

Council Depot Blues, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. (2018).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jake Abraham, Roy Brandon, Paul Broughton, Lindzi Germain, Howard Gray, Phil Hearne, James Nelson-Joyce, Andrew Schofield.

We all count down the hours as a big day arrives, the end of the week and the chance to sit down with the feet up in the comfy chair or enjoy a holiday in which there is nothing to do but soak up the sun and breathe in the different air. Until the day of final reckoning when the chance to say goodbye to all those we have ever worked alongside, come rain or shine, come snow, hail, biting winds and the odd moments when the heat has driven us to distraction, leaves us with Time on our hands to think, and it is that thinking that makes the clock tick louder as it reminds us, we have nothing to do today and that we miss being part of the routine.

Bouncers, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. (2015).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Paul Broughton, Danny O’ Brien, Andrew Schofield, Michael Starke.

The night is young, the perfume is sprayed with liberal application, the smell of the aftershave overpowers the testosterone emanating from the raw majesty that is the Friday night club and disco and the D.J., who might not save your life on the night but who will certainly play a few good numbers to get the girls up and dancing, is full of ready innuendo. If your names are not down though and you’re not ready to party with the best doormen around then the Bouncers, on behalf of the management, reserve the right to make you laugh long into the night.

Shed, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Paul Broughton, Michael Starke.

The humble British Shed, so loved by many, so bemusing too many more. A place where sanctuary is sought, where peace can reign and Time can be seen not to ravage but to almost stall, decay at a slower rate, to inspire growth and let thoughts take hold in a way that the outside world, almost insistent on the answers being forthcoming at the speed of knots, cannot comprehend. The shed is last refuge, be it six foot wide in all directions or built in the fashion that some might as well retire and spend their remaining days locked within and practise for the ultimate last days of potting and cutting dead leaves of a much valued plant.

Bouncers, Theatre Review. The Royal Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Paul Broughton, Danny O’ Brien, Louis Emerick, Michael Starke.

The 1980s nightclub, the big night out, big hair, cheaper beer, even cheaper aftershave and perfume sprayed on as liberally as showering underneath Victoria Falls for five days and then taking a dip in a swimming pool to get that real deep down scent. This was the time, depending on where you were living and your circumstances dictated in which Saturday night was the highlight of the week, the chance to meet the girl of your dreams, the man of your nightmares and all washed down with enough alcohol to drown an angel on a week-long bender on a Spanish holiday, all you had to do was get past the Bouncers on the door.

Special Measures, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Eithne Browne, Paul Broughton, Stephen Fletcher, Jessica Guise, Colin Hoult, Adam Search, Angela Simms, Michael Starke.

St Jude’s Primary School has been placed into Special Measures, the universal, one size fits all term, to denote that somewhere something is not right with the system.

When Tory M.P. Thomas Winters feels the wrath of the P.M.s anger at being hit by a croquet mallet in a particularly painful constituency, he is dispatched to tick the right sort of boxes in a North of England school and make amends. The fall out, the so called oppressed kicking downwards is not new but for the Head Master and staff of St. Jude’s the fall of basic humility and understanding looking them in the eyes is one that is too much to bear.

Bouncers, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre. Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Paul Broughton, Danny O’ Brien, Michael Starke, Mark Womack.

In the night time, in the sometimes unforgiving dark which is briefly punctuated by loud thumping music and neon lights enticing the weary, the foolhardy and the desperate, the bouncer is king of his domain. What he says, happens, if he tells you to sling your hook, you go, tail between your legs; if he orders you to laugh, cry and feel as though the night has been an almighty success, then you have probably seen John Godber’s acclaimed play, Bouncers at the Royal Court Theatre.

Bouncers To Step In At The Royal Court This July.

Royal Court Liverpool are producing one of English Theatre’s best known plays this summer. John Godber’s Bouncers will be filling the slot vacated by One Night In Istanbul and will run from 19th July – 17th August.

The show will be set at Liverpool’s Grafton nightclub in 1985.

John Godber is one of the most performed playwrights in the English language with plays like Teechers, Up N Under and Screaming Blue Murder regularly performed up and down the country. Bouncers is the most popular of all his shows and since it was written in 1977 there has always been a production of it playing somewhere in the world. He has written more than 50 plays and has won numerous awards for his plays including a Lawrence Olivier Award and seven Los Angeles Critics Circle Awards.