What happens in Sunny Afternoon
Sunny Afternoon dramatises the rise of The Kinks from working-class North London brothers to international rock stars in the mid-1960s. The book follows Ray and Dave Davies — sons of a working-class family in Muswell Hill — as they form a band with bassist Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory, sign a publishing deal with American producer Eddie Kassner and a management deal with Grenville Collins, and embark on a meteoric and self-destructive rise.
Act I — Forming The Kinks
The act opens in a Britain caught between the buttoned-up 1950s and the about-to-explode 1960s. Ray and Dave are signed; their first single flops; their second — "You Really Got Me" — invents a sound that arguably starts the British heavy guitar tradition. The act follows their first US tour, the union ban that exiled the band from American TV, the success of the title song, and the dawning awareness that the publishing and management deals they signed in their teens are not in their favour.
Act II — Cost
Act II turns on the cost of everything that's gone before. The brothers' relationship splinters. Ray's marriage cracks under the pressure of constant touring. The financial deal turns sour. The band keeps producing some of the best songs of the era — Waterloo Sunset, Sunny Afternoon, A Well Respected Man — while it falls apart underneath them. The show closes with a kind of reconciliation, the band still standing, and the songs the audience came to hear played in full as the curtain falls.
The setlist
The show draws on roughly 20 Kinks songs across both acts, including: You Really Got Me, All Day and All of the Night, Tired of Waiting for You, A Well Respected Man, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street, Waterloo Sunset, Autumn Almanac, Days, Lola, I'm Not Like Everybody Else, and This Strange Effect. The cast band perform the songs live on stage.
How Sunny Afternoon got made
The collaboration
The musical was developed over approximately four years by Ray Davies, the Australian-born playwright Joe Penhall, director Edward Hall and producer Sonia Friedman. Friedman commissioned the piece on the back of conversations with Davies in the early 2010s. Davies wrote the music and lyrics — most of which already existed as Kinks recordings — and an original story; Penhall wrote the book; Hall, then Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre, directed and helped shape the production at his own theatre before its commercial life began.
Hampstead and the transfer
Sunny Afternoon premiered at Hampstead Theatre on 23 April 2014 in a strictly limited run. It sold out, drew rave reviews, and was transferred almost immediately to the West End's Harold Pinter Theatre by Sonia Friedman Productions. The transfer opened on 28 October 2014. John Dagleish played Ray Davies and George Maguire played Dave Davies in both the Hampstead and West End runs.
The Olivier sweep
At the 2015 Olivier Awards, Sunny Afternoon won four awards out of six nominations: Best New Musical, Outstanding Achievement in Music (Ray Davies), Best Actor in a Musical (John Dagleish), and Best Supporting Actor in a Musical (George Maguire). The Outstanding Achievement in Music award was a particularly meaningful recognition — it acknowledged Davies as a serious musical-theatre composer, not just a pop songwriter whose back catalogue had been licensed.
West End run and closure
The Harold Pinter Theatre run lasted two years, ending on 29 October 2016, having played to over 430,000 people. It was followed by a 2016/17 UK and Ireland tour. The West End closure was not driven by poor business — the show was still selling well — but by the standard commercial pressures around long-running productions in mid-sized West End houses, and by the producers' decision to give the show a national life on tour.
The 2025/26 return
After nearly a decade, Sonia Friedman Productions and ATG Productions announced a major new UK tour in March 2025, opening at the Manchester Palace Theatre in October 2025. The 2025/26 production was substantially the original creative team — Edward Hall directing, Miriam Buether designing, Adam Cooper choreographing — with a new cast led by Danny Horn (who had played Ray Davies in the show's 2025 Chicago Shakespeare Theater run) and Oliver Hoare. The tour included three London-area dates: New Wimbledon Theatre in November 2025, Alexandra Palace in January 2026, and Richmond Theatre in March/April 2026.
Chicago, 2025
In parallel with the UK tour, Sunny Afternoon received its North American premiere at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in spring 2025, directed by Edward Hall (now CST's Artistic Director). The Chicago production further established the show's international standing.
