The Lowdown on Teeth ‘n’ Smiles at the Duke of York’s Theatre
Published on 11 March 2026
What is it?
A revival of David Hare’s 1975 play about a rock band, led by the wildly charismatic singer Maggie Frisby, who are playing the May Ball at Jesus College, Cambridge, at the bum end of the 1960s. The band are wasted and already 90 minutes late on stage, and the audience of posh boys and girls is getting restive. “Right, let’s smash up the place,” is the cry. Oh, no! So will the manicured lawn get trashed?
Oh, so a period piece about a clash of cultures, the wild energy of the rock band versus the entitlement of the establishment?
Eh, not quite, but in some ways yes too. The first—very funny—20 minutes of the play involves a dispute over a plug whose fuse has blown. Nobody can be bothered to change it or thinks it’s their job to do so. It’s very much a state of the nation play about the loss of postwar idealism and the suggestion that the promise of change—including regarding where power resides—failed to materialise. Here the revolution appears to have been cancelled because of sheer lack of interest.
About a very particular moment in time, then?
If director Daniel Raggett has any smarts (and he does; he directed the ferociously sharp West End revival of Accidental Death of an Anarchist), he will make it feel as if it is speaking directly to now, and the sense that smashing up the place is the only solution because nothing ever gets better. It may be 50 years old but could well land at precisely the right moment in terms of reflecting public mood.
So, this Maggie, what’s she like?
The furious beating heart of the play. A great big chewy role. In the original Royal Court production, which transferred to the West End, Maggie was played by Helen Mirren. An absolutely wild performance. You couldn’t look away. Yep, I saw it as a teenager. In this revival, Maggie is played by Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, previously seen in the West End as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. It is a demanding part, requiring an ability to sing like a rock diva and act like a Grande Dame.
Ah, so it’s a musical?
Again, yes and no. Hare came up with the idea of melding the energy of a rock concert with the reflective, probing abilities of theatre at least 35 years before anyone coined the term “gig theatre". So, it was certainly radical in form 50 years ago, and while the songs are not exactly what you might call hummable, they are certainly effective and include the haunting Last Orders on the Titanic, a reminder that we all go down with the ship.
That doesn’t sound very cheerful.
It’s not, but Teeth ‘n’ Smiles is also mighty watchable and very entertaining. Hare, himself, was clear-eyed about his own play. “I would say that it is about the fag-end of idealism. It’s about utopianism when it turned sour. It’s about that stage people reach when they will do anything for an experience, and having originally enjoyed the vitality of the experience, they then become addicted to the experience. So that the central action of the play is that Maggie would rather go to jail than not. I am not sure the play finally convinces the audience that Maggie would do this. And so to that degree the play is a failure. However, I hope that meanwhile it was a lot of fun.”
Didn’t Hare go to Jesus College, Cambridge?
He did, but he says the play is not autobiographical but did reflect his time at Jesus. "Like, I did go to Jesus College, Cambridge, and there were rock groups visiting at the time. Everything on the surface is documentarily accurate. The rock groups were fantastically aggressive, and they hated having to play those dates, and they were extremely rude to the audience, and by and large their audience disliked them very much too. It was an extraordinary clash of two worlds: these May Balls with people dressed up and performing a complete parody of a life that was over many years ago, and into that crashed these rock bands, like travelling trouble on the move."
I heard that Keith Moon tried to crash the stage at the Royal Court when it was on?
So legend has it. He was apparently visiting Helen Mirren in her dressing room and stayed there when she went on stage, but then he staggered out of the stage in an inebriated state and made it onto the stage before being guided away by the stage manager.
Don’t say:
Isn’t it David Hare, knight of the realm? That sounds pretty establishment to me.
Do say:
Rage can burn everything down. Including the wine tent.
Teeth 'n' Smiles plays at the Duke of York's Theatre from 13 March to 6 June 2026. Book your tickets today.
By Lyn Gardner
Lyn Gardner is an acclaimed theatre journalist and former critic with decades of experience covering British theatre, from off-West End and fringe theatre to major West End productions.