Black Tie Ball playwright John Godber
ACTORS took to the stage in tuxedos in John Godber’s debut play Bouncers in 1977. Now, more than 70 plays and 48 years later, he swaps the sticky-floored nightclub for the sophisticated pomp and ceremony of Black Tie Ball’s stuck-up party world.
Premiering at Harrogate Theatre from September 10, writer-director Godber’s sequinned satire for our rotten times is set on the glitziest night of the year as he explores relationships, secrets and the drunken dramas when all the great and the good want to be there.
“The Bentleys are parked; the jazz band has arrived, and the magician is magic, so pick up your invite for this fundraising frenzy,” says John, introducing the night when the hotel staff – short staffed alas – will recount an entire evening at breakneck speed from arrival at seven to carriages at midnight, recalling the fast-moving physical theatre of Bouncers being told through the eyes of the four doormen of the apocalypse.
“The raffle is ready, the coffee is cold, the service is awful, the guest speaker is drunk, and the hard-pressed caterers just want to go home. Behind the bow ties and fake tans, there are jealousies and avarice, divorces and affairs. This is upstairs meets downstairs through a drunken gaze.”
In trademark Godber visceral style, the staff will “re-create events in front of your very eyes, so there will be tuxedos in the mix,” says John, who writes from experience of such formal and formulaic occasions.
“I’ve been to a lot of these black-tie events. It’s interesting to write about as the play takes a cock-eyed look at the event from the point of view of staff, who are depleted and inexperienced and they’ve had to call back in a guy who’s just finished his shift,” he says.
“Three of them have never worked at the hotel before; they’ve been drafted in as agency staff, and the manager is a Spanish guy, Emilio Sanchez, who ‘can’t be seen in public’! The owner, Sir Graham, an extremely wealthy hotel businessman, who lives in Madeira, has turned up at the ball, which heightens everyone’s pulse.
“The Black Tie Ball is one of multiple events taking place at the same time in the hotel: there’s also a literary event; a boxing event in the spa; a prom in another room. The hotel is full, so there’s major pressure on the staff.”
Godber recalls his mother working in service at Carlton Towers. “Why she would want to go into service, I don’t know,” he sighs.
The cast will play 20 characters, from the staff to the jazz band, the manager and owner to assorted guests. “We’ve got the whole gamut,” says John. “When I was developing the play, I realised that all the world’s a stage at a hotel, so we do have a murder, with the police arriving, and we do have affairs and Mr and Mrs Smiths signing in. I’ve corralled most of the tropes of the hotel world.”
Upstairs meets downstairs at under-staffed, overworked hotel in John Godber’s sequinned satire Black Tie Ball, on tour from September 10
First inspired by reading the naturalistic works of Henrik Ibsen, Godber favours this form of storytelling that gives his plays authenticity. “As I career towards 70 [next birthday, May 18 2026], I think I can say it’s a style that I’ve made my own,” he says.
“Funnily enough I’ve been looking at writing about women’s rugby for telly but I’ve been hitting a brick wall, whereas writing with naturalism I kind of find so easy, like when I did all that time writing for Grange Hill and Brookside, the Up’n’Under film and BAFTA short films, but I really enjoy the elasticity of writing for theatre because it’s theatrical and the audience is right there – and it’s live.
“Is that because of where I’m from and always being active as a kid? Theatre is equivalent to a sporting experience. As Alan [Ayckbourn] used to say: the greatest thing to hear is ‘you should have been here last night’…when you know it worked but you haven’t any idea how tonight will go.”
At events such as black tie balls, as elsewhere, John has his radar switched on. “All the time my radar is scanning everything. That’s the gift to the playwright, if there is one,” he says. “You are ‘quintessentialising’ an experience.”
His best writing is marked by a need to respond to what’s going on around him, fuelled by anger. “To be honest, as you get older, it’s very hard not to get angry because there’s so much hogwash about. Let’s not bring up Trump, Ukraine, Gaza and UK immigration. Just look locally at what’s going in,” he says.
“There’s enough to be angry about, but if there’s a sleight of hand to writing a play, you don’t lead with the anger first. You think, with Ibsen, Chekhov, Ayckbourn and I’ve got to say Pinter too, ‘that was funny, but not just funny ha-ha’. Any good comedy in theatre is laced with sanguine and sour reality.”
Comedy versus tragedy, John: which is the greater of theatre’s two faces? “I think comedy makes a wider point than tragedy. For me, the catharsis of a great tragedy is over quicker; sometimes comedies last longer in the brain.”
John Godber Company in John Godber’s Black Tie Ball, Harrogate Theatre, September 10 to 13; CAST, Doncaster, September 17 to 20; Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, September 30 to October 1; Hull Truck Theatre, October 14 to 18; Bridlington Spa, November 3 and 4; Pocklington Arts Centre, November 6 to 8; Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, November 12 to 15.
Box office: Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Doncaster, 01302 303959 or castindoncaster.com; Huddersfield, 01484 430528 or thelbt.org; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk; Bridlington, 01262 678 258 or bridspa.com; Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; Scarborough, 01723 370541or sjt.uk.com. Alternatively, visit thejohngodbercompany.co.uk.
Who’s in the Black Tie Ball cast?
LONG-TIME John Godber collaborator William Ilkley (War Horse, Trigger Point) will be joined Dylan Allcock, from Godber’s 2024 play The Highwayman, and Yorkshire actors Levi Payne and Jade Farnill.
Jade is a member of the Godber Theatre Foundation, an initiative run by the John Godber Company since 2020 to support emerging actors from East Yorkshire into professional roles and opportunities. Each year, members are supported into roles in new touring productions by the Yorkshire company.