Teeth ‘n’ Smiles with Rebecca Lucy Taylor – West End review

The despair and disillusion of the music business have never been far away from the hopes and dreams of the musicians who make it. They set out to change the world and end up mired in drink, drugs and an endless round of tawdry touring.

Though David Hare’s Teeth ‘n’ Smiles was written 50 years ago, it still captures the collision of idealism and reality that characterises the world today. And in the performance of Rebecca Lucy Taylor, the singer who goes by the stage name of Self Esteem, it has a blazing star who illuminates the stage.

The setting is a May Ball at Cambridge in 1969, where Maggie Frisby and her band The Skins have been booked to play at Jesus College for £120. Maggie is in a bad way, first seen being unloaded from the van like a sack of potatoes slumped over a roadie’s shoulder. But the band have all seen better days.

They are, in the words of their cynical manager Saraffian (Phil Daniels, in sharp form) a small cult and they have hardened into caricatures: the big-talking guitarist Wilson (Michael Abubakar) who talks of revolution but worries about getting his patched jeans torn, the drug-addled bassist Peyote (Jojo Macari) who ends the night out of his head in a ballgown.

On Chloe Lamford’s set, the medieval architecture of a Cambridge college fades into the shadows as they slouch on sofas before their set. When they play, they climb onto a moving truck surrounded by lights. And when the music starts, the play utterly comes to life, the songs by Nic and Tony Bicât summing up its themes. The psychedelic optimism of the ’60s is over; punk is around the corner. “The ship is sinking… the song remains the same.”

Taylor is sensational as Maggie, full of self-loathing and fight in almost equal measure, staggering around the stage but never going down. When she sings – and she has added one expressive song to the Bicât set list – she is mesmeric, holding the audience in the grip of her hand while never losing sight of her character’s pain and her inability to quell it.

She’s not a victim, although Hare is clear about the rock industry’s chauvinistic disregard for women. Somehow, heroically, she pulls through, keeping a flame of revolt alive. Literally.

Around her, lots of different themes raise their heads. There’s a class-based subplot about her encounter with a diffident medical student (Roman Asde, rather touching) and another more complicated one about her relationship with her ex-lover Arthur (Michael Fox) which never comes fully into focus.

It’s not a perfect play, sending sparks in all directions, but it is both witty and wise. Because Hare tackles serious themes, it’s easy to forget how funny he is, and in all the laddish dialogue and Maggie’s retorts, there’s great vigour. Daniels, in particular, is gifted with some classic lines, which he lands to maximum effect. “You get the Judy Garland Award for boring, boring, boring,” he sneers, as Maggie collapses in alcoholic stupor. But she gives as good as she gets. “Smile while you still have teeth.”

Sarrafian’s presence, and his stories of the war – which are slightly overstretched – are a reminder of how the 1960s were shaped by a wartime generation desperate for hope, and how far we have moved again since the anti-establishment 1970s. In that sense, Teeth ‘n’ Smiles now functions as a history play, giving context to the state we are in.

It’s brought to vivid life here by a new generation of creators, not only Taylor, but also by the care of director Daniel Raggett, lighting designer Matt Daw (who offers a moment of Queen-like chiaroscuro) and by a sound design by Ben and Max Ringham that sends its songs piercingly into the present.