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.
