It reminds me I why wrote the songs in the first place
The Olivier Award-winning Sunny Afternoon is back on tour, which gives those of us who see it first time round another chance to watch a great story and listen to some of the Sixties most classic tunes by The Kinks, writes Michael Holland.
Sunny Afternoon is not another Jukebox Musical of Kinks songs but a theatrical piece put together by the band’s main songwriter, Ray Davies, alongside celebrated playwright Joe Penhall and director Edward Hall, to ensure it has authenticity, gravitas and integrity.
Ray Davies has been speaking about the tour and his feelings of a show that will never grow old.
What has it been like for you seeing your songs and story come to life on stage?
Daunting at first. I was working on the storyline on and off for three years, but in many ways the story is contained within the songs. The songs were written in such specific moments of my life and now they’ve been reinterpreted, given new context. It’s humbling, and sometimes a bit surreal, to see the audience connect to those moments as if they’re happening now. It’s proof that the music still has a pulse.
How did you approach revisiting your own past?
With caution at the beginnin I didn’t want it to be just another jukebox musical. I wanted Sunny Afternoon to have heart, to show what it really felt like to live through that madness. We approached it as a piece of storytelling, not nostalgia. I went back to the songs and the memories behind them and tried to weave them into something honest. It wasn’t about polishing the past, it was about exploring it with the rawness that inspired the songs in the first place.
Did collaborating with director Edward Hall and writer Joe Penhall challenge your version of events in any way?
When you’ve lived something, you think you know the story inside out, but Edward (Hall) and Joe (Penhall) held up a mirror to it. They’d ask questions I hadn’t thought about in years and that made me reassess a lot of things. They didn’t rewrite my version, but they did expand it.
What memories stand out most vividly for you when you look back on that era?
The contrast, I think. One day we were scraping by in Muswell Hill, the next we were banned from America. There were moments of absolute chaos, and others of beautiful clarity. Although we didn’t appreciate it at the time, the band celebrated being at the height of British culture, everything felt bright and exciting after coming out of the darkness of the Second World War.
What has it meant to showcase your back catalogue all in one place?
It’s been a gift. Songs like ‘Lola’ or ‘Days’ have their own lives, but when you hear them alongside ‘Dead End Street’ or ‘Sunny Afternoon’ you see the full picture. The musical gave me the chance to connect those dots for people, to show how the songs talk to each other. And it reminded me too, why I wrote them in the first place.
New Wimbledon Theatre, 93 The Broadway, Wimbledon, London SW19 1QG from 25th – 29th November.
www.atgtickets.com/wimbledon
Booking and full tour details: https://uk.thekinksmusical.com/
