Back in the day, Mrs Chrisparkle and my mother-in-law Lady Prosecco were great aficionados of those fashion gurus Trinny and Susannah. In the fashion world, a good design never really goes away, but on the subject of revivals of old styles, one of their mantras was if you’re old enough to have worn it the first time around, don’t wear it the second. I’m wondering if that also applies to theatre. I am old enough to remember the fuss about Teeth ‘n’ Smiles the first time around, although not quite old enough to have seen it. But my very respectable English teacher at the time thought it was great, probably because it made him fall in love with Helen Mirren. I remember devouring the text as a teenager and being thrilled at how daring and dangerous it all was. So, when it was announced that T ‘n’ S was coming back, I booked for it instantly.
In case you don’t know, Maggie Frisby and her band are a bit down on their uppers; whilst showing loads of promise they never quite made it to the big time. Their manager Saraffian has arranged them a tour which includes playing the 1969 May Ball at Jesus College Cambridge. A perfectly reasonable booking: George Melly came to our college May Ball in 1979 and he was ace. However, the good partygoers at Jesus didn’t have such a great night as we did. Wracked with alcohol and fuelled by drugs, the band are a dishevelled lot whose conversation ranges from what’s the most boring thing you can think of to where can I get a blowjob. Arthur, their songwriter, makes a surprise appearance and we slowly learn that his association with the band clearly extended beyond mere songwriting. Bass guitarist Peyote is only concerned with shooting up; and star singer Maggie has passed out through drink and has to be carried on, washed and dressed before she can perform.
Teeth ‘n’ Smiles takes us, set by set, through the rigours of that night, with animosities between the group members exposed, limp intervention on the part of Anson, the College Ball rep, the ruthless manager only looking after his own interests, the breaking of hearts, the theft of college articles and a run-down whisky sloshing singer doing her best against the odds. No wonder I thought it was daring and dangerous when I was fifteen.
The appeal of revisiting an old play is discovering those timeless truths that applied when it was written and are still valid today. Teeth ‘n’ Smiles deals with unrequited love, the self-destruction inherent in too much talent and ambition, and of course the damage that drink and drugs can do. I am a huge admirer of David Hare’s writing, and some of his early work still reads superbly. Teeth ‘n’ Smiles, however, seems long past its best by date. What was once shocking now feels somewhat infantile; and some of the speeches, particularly as the play progresses, come across as genuinely pretentious. Conversations are stilted and flow unnaturally, and Daniel Raggatt’s direction seems to encourage a static presentation, which sadly lends an air of dullness to the whole proceedings.
A minor example of how dated it feels, but one that I think typifies the problem: David Hare has Arthur constantly humming Cole Porter’s You’re the Top whilst he’s hanging around waiting for stuff to happen. That was probably stretching imagination in 1975 but today it’s just so unlikely. At the time it was said that Helen Mirren’s Maggie evoked memories of the late Janis Joplin; no offence, but do we really care much about her as the 2020s turn towards the 2030s?
In addition, I found two of the supplementary characters very hard to believe. The tongue-tied fish out of water student, Anson, would never have been put in charge of organising the ball unless he radiated confidence and was a proven organiser; and the college porter, Snead, simply would not have accepted the language and the disrespect that the band members dish out to him. Everyone knows that Oxbridge students and their guests owe everything to how they treat the porter; in real life Snead would simply have delivered a withering no to their demands and gone home to bed.
That said, it’s still fascinating to witness an early example of what we think of today as gig theatre. The band performance scenes, which are without question the best part of the production, pepper the play to suggest the three sets that the band perform during the course of the ball. It’s emphatically not a musical but a play with music; Nick and Tony Bicât’s original songs are all still there, with the addition of one more, Maggie’s Song, written by Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self Esteem) who plays Maggie. It’s a nice idea, which lends an additional personal touch to her performance. Some of the songs are strikingly memorable; the brilliant Don’t Let the Bastards Come Near You will haunt your musical memory mind for days. In fact, the production goes all out to make these musical moments as strong as they can be – Matt Daw’s lighting design goes into overdrive.
Rebecca Lucy Taylor has a terrific voice and a powerful stage presence and certainly comes into her own during the musical numbers. Phil Daniels plays Saraffian as a weaselly old scoundrel and does a good job of making some truly intractable speeches understandable. At our performance, the role of Laura was played by understudy Levi Heaton who brought some genuine emotion to the piece. The band members are of course all excellent musicians, with spirited banter from Michael Abubakar as Wilson, Bill Caple as Nash and Noah Wetherby as Inch. Jojo Macari energetically plays the permanently high bass guitarist Peyote, and there’s amusing support from Joseph Evans as Saraffian’s latest project Randolph.
A classic case of everything being right about the production except the play. There were long sequences where the audience was simply dulled into silence, and our overall reaction to the play was muted. I’m glad I saw it, and I’m sure fans of Self Esteem will be thrilled seeing Rebecca Lucy Taylor in action. But it truly wasn’t for me.
Two Disappointing for More!