By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Saturday 14 March, opens 25 March and runs through 6 June 2026 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Three-quarters of the way through this revival of a David Hare play with music which originally starred Helen Mirren its new star Rebecca Lucy Taylor, better known as Self Esteem, sits on the steps leading up to the stage and plays a new song she has written herself solo on the guitar as her character finds her voice.

• Read on for reasons including how Self Esteem updates this work with new material that brings real soul and authenticity to it

‘The singing is easy, it’s the bits in between I can’t do,’ explains Taylor’s Maggie Frisby, lead singer of band The Skins, earlier in this 50th anniversary revival of a show which debuted at London’s Royal Court Theatre.

It’s a part Taylor has played in many ways in real life previously as like Slow Club, the band she was in before finding solo fame, The Skins career looks to have stalled while their singer is in meltdown with the latter booked to play the Cambridge University May Ball on the suggestive 9 June 1969

Maggie is described in the programme as ‘a sexually ravenous, whisky swigging singer’ and we soon learn that part of her torture is that she’s singing songs written for her by her former lover Arthur, a charming Michael Fox, who returns ahead of these 3 sets the band are due to play at the ball in 1 evening to check up on Maggie.

We meet the band she plays with and their inane chat is reminiscent of play Stereophonic (Duke Of York’s Theatre) which covered similar themes at this very venue to much acclaim last year.

We’re sitting on the end of row 3 in the stalls and there’s great use of the aisles with characters appearing onstage through both of them and the 1st time we see Taylor’s Frisby is as she is carried onstage unconscious by her bandmates and roadie.

We also meet the very young medical student who booked the band, a nervous Roman Asde as Anson is about to get much more than he bargained for Almost Famous style.

The band includes Samuel Jordan (Standing At The Sky’s Edge, Gillian Lynne Theatre) as the bleached blond-haired and earnest Smegs as they thrillingly play their songs live in front of us with Taylor’s Frisby visibly losing her mind centre stage.

A charismatic and rogue-ish Phil Daniels (COCK, Ambassadors Theatre) arrives midway through the show as the band’s manager to deliver bad news as things get worse and worse for Frisby.

Taylor won our 2025 monsta for Best Gig for her show at the Duke Of York’s Theatre and played in Cabaret to much acclaim at The Kit Kat Club opposite Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears but is even better here.

Her Frisby is hard to empathise with but impossible to draw your eyes from and Taylor updates this work with new material about pop before punk in a way that brings real soul and authenticity to it.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Teeth’n’Smiles Tickets
• Have you seen a Self Esteem show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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