The public outcry that followed the prison sentences of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1967 after a drugs raid on the latter’s country pile is proof that the culture wars are not this era’s invention. The cause célèbre campaign and subsequent overturning of their convictions marked a clash between establishment values, tabloid-engineered moral panic and the rising rock’n’roll generation.
Justin Audibert’s production of Charlotte Jones’s play foregrounds the band’s story with a fictionalised father-son clash involving the barrister who fought their case. Michael Havers QC (Anthony Calf) is from an illustrious family of lawyers who expects his son to follow suit. But Nigel Havers (Louis Landau) – then a schoolboy, now a veteran performer of screen and stage – has designs on tearing away from tradition to become an actor.
It is an original take with a strong local angle – the case took place at Chichester Crown Court and Richards still owns Redlands, the Sussex home that was raided. But it makes for a peculiar melange, stranger for pushing Jagger (Jasper Talbot) and Richards (Brenock O’Connor) into the backdrop in favour of the family story, although Jagger’s then-girlfriend and singer, Marianne Faithfull (Emer McDaid), gets more of a look-in.
Havers Jr narrates his story, which includes a friendship forged with Faithfull, and the Havers family occasionally – unnecessarily – bursts the fourth wall to no particular end other than making good use of the auditorium.
It is rock history uneasily spliced with a coming-of-age story, sweet in its teen spirit and energetic in its rock covers – from (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction to Faithfull’s This Little Bird – but the Rolling Stones story, so fascinating in itself, feels eclipsed.
Jones’s script is at its strongest when it brings the court case alive in cross-examinations and star testimonies, but these are brief glimpses that touch on tabloid chicanery, class clashes and misogyny surrounding Faithfull in her representations in court (in absentia, because she was not called to testify) and in the press.
The Havers’ family drama is endearing but Jones’s characters are picaresque. Havers Sr is a lovable stuffed shirt, his wife tenderly portrayed by Olivia Poulet and Landau is charming in his wide-eyed worship of Faithfull. McDaid in turn gives a strong performance of a woman both scapegoated and sidelined, and she has a wonderful voice, too.
It is never easy to breathe life into celebrities as thoroughly known as Jagger and Richards; here they are not given the space or depth to be anything other than broad brush types. But both actors carry a likeness at least, especially Talbot in Jagger’s hip-wiggling foot stomps when he sings.
Joanna Scotcher’s set design captures the moment, and the era, with its ruched red curtains and light bulbs. Ryan Dawson Laight’s flower-power trousers and flamboyant neck-ties are delightful, even if they verge on Austin Powers’ exaggeration.
It revs into fullness as the family story becomes emotional but leaves the fascinating social and music history around the Redlands episode squeezed and ultimately it seems oddly twee for a play about rock’n’roll rebellion.
At Chichester Festival theatre, until 18 October
