Michael Darvell reviews the original cast recording of Sunny Afternoon, the new musical based on the music of The Kinks.
Sunny Afternoon has been the surprise hit musical show of 2014. Opening at the Hampstead Theatre, it immediately sold out for the entire run and transferred to the West End in October. It is now at the Harold Pinter Theatre and is booking until May 2015. From an original story by Ray Davies, it depicts the growth of The Kinks from humble beginnings in north London’s Muswell Hill to worldwide success as the band hit the 1960s music charts with a sound that was entirely new, with an energy all of its own. At that time the pop scene was dominated by the Mersey sound, but The Kinks put London back on the musical map.
The stage production has over two dozen songs. However, it is no mere jukebox show of hit numbers and nothing much else, for it has a real book by Joe Penhall, the award-winning playwright noted for his productions at the Royal Court (Some Voices), the National Theatre (Blue/Orange) and for writing the screenplays of Enduring Love and The Road. He has received Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and Olivier Awards for his work. Ray Davies wrote the music and lyrics for all the songs. Edward Hall directs the piece and Adam Cooper provides the choreography. It is obviously a show that has touched some sort of emotional feeling in its audiences, hence its sell-out success.
This is due in no small part to the songs themselves and there are 29 in all on the album, including a bonus track of ‘Look a Little On the Sunny Side’. The original Sunny Afternoon cast members both sing and play their instruments on the CD, which is unusual for recordings like this which often employ session musicians. Ray Davies claims that working as a group for the first time in a studio “gave the record a feeling of vitality, energy and innocence of a band just starting out… like making an early Kinks album”.
George Maguire and John Dagleish in the studio for the original cast recording of Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon. Picture: Kevin Cummins
Ray Davies is played by John Dagleish, his brother Dave Davies by George Maguire, Mick Avory by Adam Sopp and Pete Quaife by Ned Derrington. The four original musicians in The Kinks got together in the early 1960s and formed the band. In 1964 their first hit was ‘You Really Got Me’ which topped the charts in the UK and the US, probably because it had a raw edge to it that was totally unlike any other band at the time. They went on to record many more singles, LPs and concept albums, although these last were not as successful as their ‘pop’ songs which were never pop in the accepted sense of being merely catchy tunes, fodder for a public hungry for mindless entertainment. Instead, Davies’ songs always had a point to make, serious or comic, about contemporary society and the lives as lived by today’s populace.
In their time The Kinks had five Top Ten singles in the US, nine albums in the Top 40 charts, 17 Top 20 singles in the UK and five Top Ten albums. They won an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music and in 1990 were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Sadly it all came to an end in 1996 and the personnel went their separate ways. However, they undoubtedly left a great musical legacy behind them and one that was different to the then current music scene when they were at their peak. They had an enormous influence on many other bands at the time and indeed later on Blur and Oasis owed them a great debt of gratitude. This new album of the material used in the stage show is destined to be another great hit for Ray Davies, so that the original cast recording of Sunny Afternoon should perform very well in the current charts.
Just listen to tracks such as ‘You Really Got Me’, ‘Denmark Street’, ‘A Well Respected Man’, ‘Where Have All the Good Times Gone?’, ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, ‘Till the End of the Day’, ‘The Moneygoround’, ‘Days’, ‘All Day and All of the Night’, ‘Sitting in My Hotel’ and, of course, ‘Sunny Afternoon’ and everybody’s perennial favourite, ‘Waterloo Sunset’, and it is all too apparent what a very fine songwriter Ray Davies is, and that the band was then really ahead of its time. The songs made statements that were easily recognised by their audiences who could identify with these personal messages in song. None of the music sounds dated as all the songs come up freshly minted, and they certainly knocked spots off what passed for new music back in the 1960s and can still do the same now.
(Sunny Afternoon, BMG Chrysalis; 538002812)
www.sunnyafternoonthemusical.com
www.amazon.co.uk/Sunny-Afternoon-The-Kinks/dp/B00NH8O7LU
Readers may also be interested in:
Sunny Afternoon – Harold Pinter Theatre – Review
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