Jagger boy's licence to light up

Mick Jagger's son has become the first man in London to be allowed to smoke legally in a pub.

James Jagger, 21, has been given a special licence to light up when he appears in a play at the King's Head theatre in Islington.

It is thought to be the first issued in the city since the introduction of the ban on smoking indoors.

The licence was granted after environmental health officers accepted that smoking was "integral" to the plot of the pair of black comedies he is starring in.

Ironically it comes in the week that his father's bandmates, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, flouted the ban as the Rolling Stones performed at the O2.

Bosses at the venue face a fine of several thousand pounds after the guitarists each enjoyed an illegal cigarette mid-concert on Tuesday.

Last night Richards was smoking on stage again, making it more likely that Greenwich council will act.

Jagger junior is set to play a Vietnam veteran and a Texan "village idiot" in a pair of one-act black comedies at the Islington theatre which is part of a pub.

A source at the King's Head theatre said: "The law has been a bit of a headache for some producers because you have to prove that smoking is vital to the integrity of the production. But with Vietnam as the backdrop it was obvious smoking was necessary.

"You can't have a group of macho guys puffing away on novelty chalk cigarettes - it would just look ridiculous.

"We didn't have any problems convincing Islington council that our case was genuine."

Casualties of the ban have included The Last Confession, starring David Suchet, at the Theatre Royal in Haymarket.

Producers of the Vatican-set thriller, about the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, were refused a licence to smoke on stage by Westminster council when the ban came into force on 1 July.