Theatre review: Here and Now: The Steps Musical

Rhys John Edwards 

There are only two ways to react to the news that there’s now a Steps musical: instantly buy a ticket, or groan. I genuinely don’t think it’s possible to react anywhere in between. And when it comes to jukebox musicals, I must admit, I’m very much a groaner.

That said, one thing I’ve learned from sitting through a fair few of them in recent years is that there are clearly people out there who love them more than life itself. So, jukebox musicals aren’t going anywhere in a hurry, and I’m just going to have to make my peace with that.

I suppose it has something to do with familiarity, the comfort of knowing exactly what’s coming next. Like sticking on an old episode of Friends when you’re hungover. It’s just a safe bet.

But the trouble with a safe bet is that it can feel a little… beige. Perfectly adequate for a Sunday afternoon spent soothing vodka-related anxiety, but, for me, not quite justification enough to occupy a space like the Donald Gordon Theatre at the Wales Millennium Centre.

All of which is to say that Here and Now: The Steps Musical very much started on the back foot with me before I’d even taken my seat. And yet… whilst it didn’t exactly convert me into a jukebox musical evangelist, it did manage to temporarily blind my inner cynic with its neon-soaked, key-changing, unapologetically cheesy joy.

Set in the seaside superstore Better Best Bargains, the show follows Caz (Laura Denning), a woman still processing the trauma of a previous stillbirth and hoping to adopt a child. On the very day she’s accepted onto the adoption programme, her husband leaves her, plunging her life into chaos.

I mean, put like that, it sounds a lot. But to be honest, you barely notice these traces of darkness as the overall tone is so migraine-inducingly bright and optimistic.

Laura Denning anchors the show with vocals perfectly suited to Steps. She sings with that pure, unblemished kind of tone, a voice that is unfashionable in today’s pop landscape but has always been tailor-made for musical theatre, and of course was a mainstream sound of the late-nineties and early-noughties, when Steps, alongside S Club, HearSay and Liberty X ruled the charts. She’s also a very gifted comic actor, elevating material that, on paper, might have earned more eyerolls than laughs in less capable hands.

She’s supported by Jacqui Dubois, Dean Rickards and Rosie Singha, who star as her close-knit gang of colleagues. Vocally, it’s strong across the board but more importantly they all understand the brief and sell every scene like their lives depend on it.  There’s a knowing quality to their performances, a sense that they’re in on the joke, even if the audience occasionally fluctuates between laughing with them and at them.

Special mention goes to Dubois, who gave her all in the first act despite what appeared to be a battle with illness, which at times appeared to affect her vocals. She was announced as indisposed for the second act and replaced by Rosemary Annabella Nkrumah, who stepped in seamlessly.

Tom Rogers’ set is overwhelming but a delight. Part seaside fantasy, part supermarket fever dream. Towering shelves of detergent stretch to the ceiling, and the stage is carved into aisles five, six, seven and eight – which was a nice touch. Gabriella Slade’s costumes amplify the pop aesthetic and Howard Hudson’s lighting is garish in the best possible way, all resulting in an atmosphere that echoes Popworld, on a better budget.

Rachel Kavanaugh’s direction embraces a knowing corniness, drawing sitcom-esque performances from the actors. The feel of the show sits somewhere between Victoria Wood’s Dinnerladies and a RuPaul’s Drag Race improv challenge. Elsewhere, Olivier Award-winner Matt Cole’s choreography is inventive and excels in what I’ve decided to call ‘shopeography’. Seriously, it’s genuinely impressive how many dance moves he seems to stretch out of someone buying talcum powder.

Shaun Kitchener’s book requires a cast and director who understand the precise tone it needs for it to work when up on its feet. Thankfully, Kitchener’s words have been paired with the right team and most of the jokes land. Although, moments which try to carry more emotional weight don’t fare quite as well. There’s just something inherently jarring about a character discussing stillbirth in what is essentially a pantomime-adjacent production.

Numbers like ‘Heartbeat’, ‘Better Best Forgotten’ and ‘5,6,7,8’ are all performed with a knowing wink, and part of the fun becomes guessing how each will be shoehorned into the plot. It doesn’t take a wild leap of imagination to predict that when news of the store’s closure arrives, the staff might consider it something of a… tragedy.

So yes, I went in primed to be unimpressed, but I found it impossible not to be swept along by the show’s sheer commitment to fun. It refuses to apologise for its cheesiness and relentlessly pursues a good time for all.

In fact, Here and Now feels oddly radical in its refusal to be ironic. In a time where culture so often hides behind cool detachment, it’s nice to be reminded of a time when pop didn’t take itself so seriously. It’s bright, noisy and daft. A surprisingly effective antidote to our serious times.