Sunny Afternoon – Opera House, Manchester and Touring

Sunny Afternoon at the Opera House, Manchester, then touring until 6 May 2017.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Hopes weren’t massively high for this Kinks musical when it first appeared in the West End in 2014. Before then, jukebox musicals had typically been either great big audience-pleasing but critically derided behemoths (Mamma Mia!, We Will Rock You) or more artful, smaller scale efforts that failed to stick around (Our House, Sunshine on Leith). But, like the Carole King musical Beautiful that came after it, Sunny Afternoon managed the double whammy of being both a big hit with audiences and a surprise critical darling.

From the outset this touring version has all the hallmarks of being just as successful. During its original run, Sunny Afternoon was lauded for the quality of its acting and for a hefty emotional wallop running deeper than other productions of its ilk. Joe Penhall’s smart but playful book doesn’t shirk from the depressive, dark clouds that hang over this particular rock ‘n’ roll story, and this new cast rises to the challenge of the material, led confidently by Ryan O’Donnell, who captures perfectly that compelling mix of diffidence and single-mindedness that made Ray Davies such a genius, but ensured his road to success was a far from smooth one.

The sum of Davies’ clashes with hell-raising little brother Dave (Mark Newman, staying just on the right side of Keith Moon-style cartoonishness), musical wrangles and managerial woes that blighted their pop success hang together far more cohesively than anyone would expect. In a way it mirrors perfectly the band’s own against-the-odds rise from Muswell Hill penury to a run of chart-topping, Atlantic-straddling pop successes that went on far longer than the reign of their closest peers The Beatles. A production of this quality is no less than Davies’ infinitely hummable but deceptively clever ditties deserve.

The second half feels a bit drawn out and low-powered in comparison to the raucous blast of Act I and the Boys’ Own nature of the band’s story leaves little room for development of the womenfolk in their life. The happy ending will also come across a little artificially for those among the audience who know their Kinks lore. The show ends with their triumphant early 70s return to an United States they had previously been banned from to play Madison Square Garden, whereas their mostly self-inflicted trials and tribulations would continue until their eventual break-up in 1996.

But the musical set-pieces are as blisteringly entertaining as musical theatre gets. The exhilarating, ear-blasting moment when ‘You Really Got Me’ gets conceived and the slow-building studio evolution of ‘Waterloo Sunset’ standing out among a brace of great musical scenes, robustly directed by Edward Hall.

And as it is portrayed here, the Savile Row stomp of ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’ would make even the most hardened nostalgia-phobe look back at the carefree Swinging Sixties with envy. Where have all the good times gone? They’re right here.

Chris Bartlett