We all want something to believe in. It’s 1987 and Frankie Vah gorges on love, radical politics, and skuzzy indie stardom. But can he keep it all down?

Following the multi-award-winning What I Learned from Johnny Bevan, Luke Wright’s second verse play deals with love, loss and belief, against a backdrop of skuzzy indie venues and 80s politics. Expect frenetic guitars, visceral verse, and a Morrissey-sized measure of heartache.

Taking us back to the dark old days of 1987, Luke Wright brings us the intriguing tale of Frankie Vah or Simon Mortimer as his parents know him. Frankie’s tale is one of rise and fall, railing against the system, set against the backdrop of the re-election of Margaret Thatcher.

But before that, the story is set in Essex where Simon Mortimer is the son of a vicar quite happy about it. He is a disenfranchised non-believer who rebels against his parents and after meeting the woman of his dreams at a party. He leaves the stable middle-class life to reinvent himself as the charismatic performance poet, Frankie Vah, scraping by in a London flat.

Right from the beginning of the play, it’s pretty obvious that both good and bad happen along the way and any character pitted against the Tories on the ‘87 election trail is destined to have a rough time of it.

Wright is an animated performer and were it not for the fact that he was clearly not of pub-going age in ’87, it would be entirely believable that we were seeing an autobiographical piece. In some ways, as Wright is a political poet, the piece could be considered partially autobiographical.

The piece is written largely in verse with some asides where Wright plays Frankie Vah as he would be performing onstage that are poems as we would all more easily recognize them (and good ones too). The other sections of the performance are in direct audience address and with a variety pack of tongue-twisting lines, blistering rhymes and precise timing, Wright weaves a world in a concise, distilled manner that leaves the viewer in little doubt over the desired perception of any scene or character in discussion.

Critics call it a good recipe for success and there’s no doubt there are some excellent ingredients there, however, there are a couple of things that soured it just a little, the main one of which being, Thatcher is an easy target and it’s a bit that’s been done before, and often. Not to say that there aren’t some important lessons to be learned from that era but it’s arguably an over-subscribed subject matter and perhaps just a little bit cheap in some ways.

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There aren’t too many productions written by a politically motivated performance poet about a politically motivated performance poet and if the heady rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of the poet on the road has ever intrigued you; this is a must-see.

Frankie Vah premiered at Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 to 5 star reviews and standing ovations. Following the Soho Theatre run Luke takes it on an extensive tour of the UK.