On gala night at the Opera House, Here and Now had fans on their feet with hit after hit – and a surprise encore from the band themselves – as Ian Cheeseman discovers the feel-good power of live theatre, even if the story takes a back seat to the songs.
As a person who loves Musical Theatre, I’m always reluctant to be critical of anything in the genre I love so much. I’m also very aware that just like comedy, music and drama, everyone has different tastes.
My latest trip to Manchester’s Opera House coincided with it being the gala night for the jukebox musical Here and Now, a new musical that is based on the songs of Steps. Their music came to prominence through songs like 5, 6, 7, 8, One for Sorrow and Tragedy, their cover of the Bee Gees hit.
While I’m not a “Steps fan” I do like a few of their songs. I went along, on the night they were in the audience and came on stage and joined in the encores.
The “story” consisted of a few short scenes that were designed to get a predictable chuckle or two before cueing a Steps song, usually led by the impressive Rebecca Lock, whose faultless vocals shouldn’t have been a surprise, as her West End pedigree is very impressive.
I generally enjoy jukebox musicals with the peerless Mamma Mia!, my personal favourite, &Juliet and the recent Manchester premiere of A Knight’s Tale showing how good this type of show can be. Mamma Mia! has been running in the West End for over a quarter of a century but Here and Now, while wooing the Manchester audience on Gala Night, would be lucky to run for six months in the West End, in my opinion.
All the action takes place in a low-cost supermarket called Better Best Bargains. The lack of character development or empathy with the leading characters is a major weakness. Naturally Steps fans will love the show, but I felt something was missing if it’s to have a more enduring and wider appeal.
I recently interviewed West End leading man Dom Simpson, who has played Christian in a great jukebox musical, Moulin Rouge, for my radio show, Break-a-Leg, and he said the trick is to make the songs fit in seamlessly into the storyline. That certainly didn’t happen in Here and Now. The lyrics to Heartbeat, a love song, certainly didn’t fit with the character Kaz singing about the baby she lost at birth.
It felt like the show was a cut and paste musical that was simply designed to squeeze in every Steps hit. Just as there is a current plethora of shows trying to copy the format of the very popular TV show, The Traitors, this just felt like rushed attempt to impersonate the big hits.
The bottom line is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The highlight of my visit to the show was the appearance of the real Steps, during the encore and getting home to play the far superior originals on YouTube, but there’s still nothing better than live Theatre.
Here and Now, the Steps Musical, runs until 13th September at the Opera House, Manchester.