Piece of Me – Camden People’s Theatre, London

Writer: Claire Gaydon

A play about being in a school pop band and also about the threat to liberty from facial recognition technology shouldn’t work. And in many ways, Piece of Me doesn’t work, but it’s still a hoot, featuring some wonderful performances from its cast of three.

At the age of 8, Claire loved Britney Spears. She also liked Destiny’s Child and All Saints. Indeed, the three actors wear the same kind of cargo pants that the Appleton sisters et al wore during their short-lived moment of fame. Inspired by these famous women, Claire writes a song and ropes in her best friends Natalie and Chloe to be her bandmates. They call their band Babyface Bland.

Over the years, Babyface Bland becomes sort of famous in its hometown of Lincoln. From appearing at school assemblies to actually cutting a record in the school’s recording studio, Claire, Natalie and Chloe become minor celebrities. Their singing is pretty mediocre, to be honest, but their dance moves are something to be reckoned with.

Writer Claire Gaydon is formidable as the band’s leader, driven and bossy but it’s Yasser Zadeh and Alex Roberts who steal all the laughs as Claire’s best friends. As easy-to-please Natalie, Zadeh is comically downcast, especially as his character is regulated to speaking parts only in the poppy songs. Chloe is more confident, feisty even and Roberts’s over-the-top dance moves are a joy to behold.

However, Gaydon also wants to talk about the intrusion of cameras into modern-day life, using, as her starting point, the example of how Britney was hounded by paparazzi when she was a superstar This change of subjects isn’t as smooth as it could be – the bridging section where Gaydon talks about being hit in the back by a bottle doesn’t quite warrant this sudden tack in direction.

The members of Babyface Bland now work in facial recognition technology selling their software to the highest bidder. It’s a credit to the actors that this change in plot seems logical, helped by a scene or two of metatheatre where Gaydon addresses the audience as the writer of the play rather than the lead singer of a band that may reunite.

If the examination of the personal loss of liberty in the present sits uneasily with the story of an amateur band, it’s still a great hour of fun. And the “choreo” is fantastic.

Runs until 1 June 2024