Brighton Year-Round 2025

Here & Now

Shaun Kitchener, Royo, Steps, Fascinating Management with Runaway Entertainment

Genre: Adaptation, Comedy, Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, Theatre

Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Want to know how you make a Miriam Margolyes out of sausage rolls? Or catch someone out with the pineapple of destiny? It all makes perfect sense and delicious nonsense as this Step-music inspired Jukebox of a shop bops its way into your week. Shaun Kitchener‘s new musical Here & Now directed by Rachel Kavanaugh arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton till December 6, then continues touring.

Choreographed with abandon and sometimes anarchically by Matt Cole, it’s a heart-warming story of how Caz, the woman who has it all sussed, wants three friends to get love (and lose unsuitable lovers) by her fiftieth birthday, just days off. But. This is a musical that gets better – and crazier – as it proceeds. It’s sometimes deftly plotted for a musical, sometimes just farcical. Kitchener‘s cannier than he gives himself credit for, depicting his characters. The scenario though doesn’t allow for much development, and it remains a jukebox vehicle.The thing though is what talent is on display, particularly the four lead singers. Lara Denning’s Caz enjoys a cut-through and soaring soprano, ardent but also gifted with a comedic edge. Her torch song ‘Tragedy’ which opens the second half with the ensemble and is still the best song here – is rendered with delicacy later on. Denning’s “Loving you” smashes through even this amped space. Jacqui Dubois, Caz’s bestie Vel, whom she’s persuading to dump charisma-bypass Lesley (John Stacey, who has a lovely voice anyway) possesses a rich mezzo range and a power-voice that also cuts through.

Rosie Singha’s Neeta, who can never admit she’s in love with the appealing Ben (a glowingly shy Ben Darcy) is yet another blazing soprano. To this trio Robbie (Blake Patrick Anderson with a bright and winning tenor) enjoys his finest moments when singing with his squeeze drag queen Jem (a gloriously OTT River Medway). Their harmonising is luscious and rapt. Similar happens between the three leading women singers; but there’s moments that touch other members of the cast. Tracey’s Lauren Woolf, seemingly content with her Sophie (there’s a cach) seems to be out of reach for Vel. But.

Finty Williams (in a fine cringe of a performance) is the unlovely manager Patricia who won’t give rises and show any loyalty to Caz who like some has been working there 25 years. But it’s seemingly through Patricia that Max (Edward Baker-Duly) appears too fruitily-voiced with his class. We can see who he is though Patricia’s been seeing a Frenchman. There’s moves and counter-moves; Patricia is caught out, then Caz herself.

And Caz, who thought she had life settled – adopting a child after her boy Jack died years ago – hasn’t reckoned on husband Gareth (Chris Grahamson) walking out on her. Later she discovers why. Twice. It’s Caz who’s in a heap now, as the others get it on and off around her (deft plotting where the exit of one affair generates another).

Caz is then drawn into a plot to oust Patricia, but doesn’t realise she’s being used and they all face losing everything. In the midst of this there’s three couplings that sashay through panic, panic rejection, and discovering what Caz really wants.

It’s drenched under the brilliant lighting of Howard Hudson, and pastel-striped set of a shop where Tom Rogers has aisle counters shuttle about like dodgems and a sea backdrop (are we somewhere on the south coast not far from here? Probably) with summer clouds. Gabriella Slade’s costumes (and Sam Cox’s wigs), particularly in the second half are stupefying. Huge cost has been thrown at this often-delightful soufflé of a musical. The scene with lit-up washing machines and the slinky outfits donned by our favourite drag-queen singing ‘Chain Reaction’ is the highlight of this collaboration. But so much blazes  – sometimes admittedly it seems padding – that the second half seems one long festival of fooling. The punchy live band is directed by Georgia Rawlins, with a yammer over-the-top brilliance in Adam Fisher’s sound, amped too high for this space. The musical orchestrations and supervisions by Matt Spencer-Smith  are conceived for slightly larger spaces.

Bar that one great song ‘Tragedy’ and ‘Chain Reaction’, the best of Steps sashays through, like the ensemble ‘Summer of Love’, ‘It’s The Way You Make Me Feel’ now tenderly recruited as a lesbian love song, ‘Here and Now’ and ‘After the Love Has gone’. The energy and drive of this ensemble are second to none, the costumes and set all point to something more substantial than what we get, but with such singing and heart, who cares? A soufflé, with some subtler plotting than you might first credit. And admittedly some improbable resolutions.

The ensemble are worth naming. Georgia Christofi, Kade Ferraiolo, Albert Green, Harry Jack, Casey Jay, Rosemary Annabella Nkrumah, Dean Richards, Genevieve Taylor, Jessica Vaux. With the eleven-strong company they bring one message we notice when the actual substance is a bit thin: that with young talent like this, no-one need worry just yet about British musical theatre. And that, with joyously noisy musical-making, is the best reason to see this silly yet warm-hearted pre-Christmas cracker.

Band. Georgia Rawlins MD, Keyboard, Jonny Knight Keys 2 Assistant MD, Manolo Polidario Guitar 1, Katy Trigger Bass Guitar, Rob Waugh Drums, Matt Hodge Percussion.

Make Up Design Jackie Saunderock, Casting Will Burton CDG, Music Technology Phij Adams, Costume Supervision Justin Allin, Wigs & Hair Supervision Charlie Watson, Props Supervision Propworks, Artwork Feast Creative, Marketing Dewynters Marketing, Press Buchanan PR. Associate Choreography Jane McMurtrie, Associate Direction Matt Hassall, Associate Sound Design Ollie Durrant, Associate Lighting design Nicola Crawford, General Management Royo, Production management Setting Line.

Published December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Simon Jenner