REDLANDS

The legendary party at Keith Richards’ baronial home in West Wittering is part of rock history, the making of the concept of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll… and oh yes, confectionery too!

Charlotte Jones has taken that moment in time and woven a drama that follows that incident forward and entertainingly looks at the consequences. And as a piece of theatre it is certainly entertaining, a little slow to start but as the story grows it picks up pace and becomes far more engaging.

The premise is multi-faceted. On one hand we have the case of two emerging pop legends being charged with the possession of illegal narcotics, a growing global career threatened by possible criminal records, even custodial sentences and a manager determined to find the best legal representation money can buy.

Enter the Havers family, Michael Havers QC, wife Carol, grandfather Cecil, Bongo to the family, and sons Philip and Nigel, yes that Nigel! Michael is the driven and successful star of the Inns Of Court, a defence barrister with an impeccable track record. Philip is destined to follow in his father’s tracks and Nigel, well we know what happens there.

The two threads become entangled, Michael is reluctant to take on the case but finally agrees, Nigel meets Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, the beautiful society hip chick Marianne Faithfull and the trial goes ahead. The outcome, well lets look more at how the play works.

The form is cleverly fractured, it starts with Nigel, beautifully portrayed by Louis Landau breaking the fourth wall. He’s a schoolboy about to take to the stage in a school play. He already has an inkling that his future lies in acting, but that his father will never approve. Enter, late and in a bluster of apologies and dismissive behaviour, the arrogant QC and his long suffering wife, we the audience at the moment becoming the parental audience of said school play. It’s’s clever and it is witty and establishes that chasm between father and son.

Soon after we are at Redlands, Keith’s West Sussex bolt hole, George Harrison and wife Patty are last to leave the party with only Jagger, Richards and Faithfull left. There is an important factor portrayed here, as the constabulary arrive to make their raid, all three react to that as if they are actually under the influence of drugs, they see tiny people outside. So were they actually using narcotics as well as booze at the party? It certainly is never questioned throughout the rest of the play.

What is revealed is that following Jagger’s libel case against The News Of The World, the paper is conducting a vendetta against him and the band and that the raid is a set-up orchestrated by a rather shady journalist. So many threads are emerging, we have drug culture, familial conflict, invasion of privacy, sexism and the oppression of women and above all the law and how, in clever hands, the facts can be manipulated to create a form of truth.

This all plays out with a soundtrack of great music, some lesser known Stones tracks from their early albums used to great effect in the piece so that by the finale we get two of their greatest hits. Is this musical theatre? No, this is theatre coloured by song, they are not there to progress the narrative, but at times the lyrics take on a momentary poignancy, Not fade Away, Can I Get A Witness, Mercy Mercy, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction… and all are delivered well by a great band who gradually become louder and more punchy as the play develops. The two best numbers though are delivered by Marianne Faithfull played so well by Emer McDaid, This Little Bird is the sweet precursor of Faithfull’s future career, and the haunting rendition of Ruby Tuesday later is the musical highlight of the show.

So on to the portrayals of those iconic figures. Jasper Talbot has all the wiry energy of the young Jagger, struts and pouts and belts out the songs with a conviction that surpasses an impersonation. Brenock O’Connor oozes east-end rebellious charm as Richards, flamboyantly loping around the stage. Clive Francis plays Bongo, Cecil Havers, with such charm, a rebel in his own way and a touchstone for the maturing Nigel. Olivia Poulet’s Carol Havers is marvellously reserved in moments and delightfully rebellious when roused.

At the centre of this play, and in the end we are surely aware that this is not a play about the Rolling Stones but about the Havers family, we have father and son. Anthony Calf is terrific as Michael, a man defined by the law, by his own powers and success, by tradition and an expectation that both his sons will follow in his wake. Louis Landau is the ever present thread that links all in the tangled web of a story. His portrayal of an actor that we all know so well, as a boy moving from puberty into manhood is so well measured. It’s not an impersonation but it is dressed with mannerisms that we can recognise and lines that point to his future.

Charlotte Jones has taken a story that could be delivered as a rock’n’roll West End, bums on seats blockbuster drawing Stones fans from around the world in the same way that so many pop based shows have taken over the West End. Instead she has created a play that deals with far more interesting issues. I wish some had been further developed, the dismissal of Faithfull’s role in the incident and the impact that it had on her, touched on but not developed, and the glancing attention given to journalistic intrusion, a thing that by the late 1990s was having massive impact, could have been looked at in more depth… but at what cost? We would no doubt have lost the songs and perhaps some of the charm and humour.

For once this season I was not impressed by the set, I felt patronised by light panels and signs that said “CHAMBERS” and “COURT” when clearly that was where we were and if a member of the cast says we are in the Garrick club, do we need a graphic as well? I think not. The costumes however had all the elements that took me back to my 1960s childhood and I loved that.

Andrew Kay

5 October

Chichester Festival Theatre

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