Duke of York’s theatre, London
Fifty years since David Hare’s play was first staged, Rebecca Lucy Taylor is inspired casting as a singer who refuses to go out without a bang
avid Hare’s 1975 play Teeth ’n’ Smiles captured the melancholy mood of a generation as it looked back on the lost counter-cultural idealism of 1969. It is a play full of endings: a rock band teetering at the close of its platform-heeled life, frontwoman Maggie and songwriter Arthur packing up their relationship, and Europe and its music industry at the end of an era.
The hippy bubble of love, hope and revolution has most definitely burst as Maggie and the gang limber up for a gig at a Cambridge University ball. It is quite a comedown from the venues of their heyday but they are not about to go gently into that good night.
Rebecca Lucy Taylor, AKA Self Esteem, plays the dangerously unpredictable Maggie, who is catatonically drunk in the lead up to the first set but somehow still pulls it out of the bag once the lights come on. It is inspired casting to place the British pop star at the centre of this revival, bringing new relevance (and new audiences too). Helen Mirren, in the original cast, is said to have based her Maggie on Janis Joplin. The advantage here is that Taylor does not need to imitate in the singing scenes. She can hold an audience, and does so here with her vocal performance.
