Review: Here and Now – The Steps Musical (Touring)

Tuesday 10th February 2026 at the Grand Theatre and Opera House, York

⭐️⭐️

It’s so, so tricky to get a jukebox musical to work smoothly. Getting the songs to match a fresh plot; squeezing the right dialogue around each musical number, aiming for the bull’s-eye of segues; balancing humour, heart and bops… it’s a tall order. Setting a story of friendship, love and thwarted life plans to the music of Steps seems a no-brainer, yet somehow this offering from writer Shaun Kitchener and director Rachel Kavanaugh feels oddly clumsy and disappointing.

There are easily likeable characters and it’s a generally strong cast who work hard to balance all the vying elements of the production with endless energy. Essentially, a group of employees are challenged by their perky leader Caz (Lara Denning) to sort their lives out and bask in a “summer of love”. So, Vel (Jacqui Dubois), Neeta (Rosie Singha) and Robbie (Blake Patrick Anderson) each take the challenge and as inevitable obstacles are thrown in, the back catalogue of Steps generally fits well for the narrative components – though at times absolute classics are woefully shoe-horned, namely 5,6,7,8 becoming the “Halfprice Hoedown”…

Denning is full of warmth and galvanising charm and has a cracking, powerful voice that makes light work of every belting song going. Comedy is primarily the domain of Singha’s frequently mortified Neesha, sardonic drag queen Jem (River Medway), caricatured overzealous boss Patricia (Sally Ann Matthews) and the straight-talking Tracey (Lauren Woolf). So let me emphasise that there are definite strengths to the piece. 

A primary issue though is the choice to set the whole thing (bar approximately five minutes elsewhere, granted) in a supermarket (set design: Tom Rogers) – “Better Best Bargains”. It’s bright, bouncy, camp and cartoonish, with staff pretty much only using their conveyors to clamber on for chats in scenes possibly better suited to the staff room to combat the sense of an oddly deserted yet familiar setting… 

Nevertheless, I found myself happily settling in for a gleefully cheesy celebration of Steps music via checkout pals. The problem is, once I clocked the issue, it just got more distracting and puzzling. With playfully lairy staff tabards in fluorescent pink (costume design: Gabriella Slade), it’s not hard to spot that the cast almost never deviate from being a mass of jolly pink employees. 

So, those who “shop” at the store are in fact… only ever those who work there, still in their uniform. The Parisian-style couple wandering through the background of a love song are… employees, strolling with a basket holding one can, lovingly arm-in-arm… A brief departure from the store takes us to a rainy external musical number featuring jolly umbrella choreo… but still with uniforms, complete with checkout headsets… An overcoat or ten allowing the ensemble to actually channel customers and offer some variety would really have done wonders to break the spell – and I do realise that for many this is minor. Get a grip Eliza, right? But once you spot it, it won’t be ignored – light-hearted musical or not, it’s a pretty basic element to overlook…

Matt Cole’s choreography works very hard here, running the ensemble through high-octane routines, sometimes impressively, sometimes surely tongue-in-cheek given the supermarket stock being caressed, and sometimes seeming randomly added to scenes in a way that feels crowded and unnecessary – almost seeming to channel those MTV Live performances that just had to have backing dancers, no matter the style – but do ballads really need such lively accompaniment when reaching for some emotional depth? 

Matt Spencer-Smith’s work as musical supervisor and arranger is also a mixed bag – at times making the music of Steps rightfully the heart of everything, and at other times offering arrangements that make it easy to lose a grasp of which songs are being overlapped for this particular medley – such as in the closing number of Act 1. 

The central premise could absolutely work, as can the endearing characters and the energetic, charming cast, but the production as a whole feels clumsily claustrophobic and too frequently random in its direction. I just couldn’t get on board with this one, and I’m not sure Steps fans will find that celebratory magic of a well-done jukebox show here either…

Here and Now – The Steps Musical is at the Grand Opera House, York until February 15th 2026 – more information and tickets can be found here.