You Really Got Me (Again): Joe Penhall on Reviving Sunny Afternoon and the Enduring Spirit of The Kinks
Celebrating the raw energy and timeless sound of one of Britain’s most iconic bands, The Kinks, the four-time Olivier Award winning musical Sunny Afternoon returns for a UK tour, coming to Sunderland Empire on Tuesday 4 – Saturday 8 November 2025.
Written by award-winning stage and screen writer Joe Penhall, with an original story and music and lyrics by The Kinks frontman, Ray Davies, the musical charts the euphoric highs and agonising lows through their catalogue of chart-topping hits, including “You Really Got Me,” “Lola,” and “All Day and All of the Night.”
We sat down with writer Joe Penhall ahead of the tour to talk about returning to his work over 10-years since its West End premiere, working with Ray Davies, and bringing the show to a new generation of fans.
Sunny Afternoon is heading back on tour. How does it feel to have the production returning to stages across the UK?
It’s incredibly exciting to be doing it again. All of us involved feel we really need it in our lives. It’s got a medicinal quality that always makes everyone feel better about life.
Since we started, over ten years ago, various cast and creatives have gone off and had babies, got married — sometimes to each other — become stars, played festivals and put out albums. We’re like a family that never grows old, somehow able to magically renew every time we regroup with new cast members… which is entirely appropriate since the musical is partly about family.
It’s been over 10 years since the show first premiered in the West End to critical acclaim, winning multiple awards, followed by a sell-out tour in 2016. What stands out the most from that initial time with the show?
The very first workshop was just Ray Davies and I with a piano and a handful of actors with guitars and tambourines. Ray would take them away for twenty minutes and teach them a pitch perfect arrangement of Waterloo Sunset, exactly like the record. It was like a magic trick. Or I’d go off with Ray and he’d explain a particularly intense episode of his life to me in a perfect, poetic monologue and I’d build a scene from it. During previews at the Hampstead Theatre Sir Tom Stoppard turned up and spent a couple of days feeding me notes and advice.
When it opened Dave Gilmore, Paul Weller and Noel and Liam Gallagher came, all big Kinks fans, all very approving. Geniuses as far as the eye could see!
You worked with the legendary Kinks frontman Ray Davies to create the show – how involved was he in the development, and what was it like to collaborate with him?
Ray was across everything and in the early days was musical director. To work out the story I’d go to Ray’s house every Friday and we’d drink tea and he’d tell me stories or show me clips, play me old bits of songs or suggest bits of films to watch. Sometimes I’d see or read something that inspired me and would show it to him and we’d figure out how it related to what we were doing.
Sometimes we disagreed and wanted to go in different directions but there was always a kind of subliminal umbilical cord connecting us, because I’d been listening to his music since I was a child and he’d admired some of my work. (He watches Mindhunter!) It’s rare to have the luxury of developing a show that way, in each other’s pockets — a real labour of love.
What do you think makes Sunny Afternoon stand apart from other ‘jukebox’ musicals?
Ray’s very theatre-literate and film-literate and knows everything there is to know about music — so we talked a lot about our favourite music, plays and films as we discovered the tone and atmosphere of the show. It’s rare for a musical artist to get so involved in the theatre, much less a giant of the rock world like Ray and that’s one of the secrets of our success.
We didn’t just take the songs and cook up some filler to cash in. We both felt that the show had to be every bit as good as a great Kinks record — the same power to move, the same sophistication, emotion and wit — or else we’d have failed. And I think we achieved that.
Why do you think The Kinks’ story and songbook continue to resonate with audiences today?
The songs are both simple and extremely complex at the same time — but they speak to people on a profound level.
As a band The Kinks were the perennial outsiders — punk before punk — and as they said themselves, “Misfits.”
If the twentieth century taught us anything it taught as that it’s OK to be a misfit, to be different, to be unlucky or unloved or broke or lost — you still have power. It can lead to great success.
The Kinks possessed immense humanity and a unique life force which is all there in the songs. People come to the show and feel euphoric and consoled and gripped all at once because they can see vestiges of their own lives in it — but they always end up on their feet dancing — and that’s the way we like it. It makes us feel alive.
The new tour means new audiences, as well as returning fans. Have you made any tweaks or changes to the production since its original run?
Unusually we haven’t changed a thing. If anything the show is more powerful and resonant since Covid.
In the scene where the band celebrates England Winning the World Cup in 1966, it doesn’t feel like ancient history — it feels like the here and now — only these days it’s women winning the World Cup — and we feel the same euphoria now as people must have back then. The fractious scenes in America also feel incredibly current. In Chicago the audiences found it quite cathartic.
It’s way more fun. It’s a little less technical and more intuitive, which is nice. With music you suddenly have this magic power at your disposal. It’s such a great tool for creating atmosphere, moving people, exciting them and stirring them up. It’s like being a painter and discovering a whole new colour spectrum.
Even when I’m working on film or TV, I make sure to keep an eye on the music and really enjoy collaborating with composers. I collaborated with Nick Cave on the film The Road — it’s about the end of the world and a million miles away from this in every conceivable way — but also a joyous experience. I’m lucky to be asked to do such different things — but basically I’m flying by the seat of my pants.
From the award-winning play Blue/Orange to the Netflix hit Mindhunter, how do you approach each different project – is there a common thread?
Believe it or not there’s a thread between Blue/Orange, Sunny Afternoon and Mindhunter.
They’re all pretty psychologically intense. They’re all about unique individuals challenging the status quo.
In general, I treat my work as “found art.” If I find a story or characters or a situation or issue that stirs me up and intrigues me, I figure out how best to use it. Depending on its formal aesthetics I’ll decide if it’s a play or a screenplay. Some things demand the wide screen of a film or TV, with camera moves and changing focus and atmospheric sound and music. Some just demand to be yelled out at night in a room full of people — dialogue to create a dialogue. But I could never just do one of them, I like to express myself in all sorts of different ways.
To look back on your career so far, is there a moment that you’re most proud of?
I try not to take too much notice of awards but the night Sunny Afternoon won four Olivier awards, one after the other, was my proudest. I was just so delighted for my friends — to see them winning best actor awards (original cast John Dagleish and George McGuire)— then to cap it all Ray and I won for the book and music. It’s almost impossible to make a show as individual and unique as Sunny Afternoon, but to have mainstream success with it was frankly a miracle.
Finally, what excites you most about the future - both for Sunny Afternoon and your own upcoming work?
I’m excited to take the tour as far as we can take it. I’d love to tour Europe and Australia with it.
Or Japan! A lot of my plays go there and it’s also different and special. I love connecting with audiences from very different places and seeing how they react within their culture. I don’t know what’s in store in terms of upcoming work. I’m developing a couple of films, so I’d love them to happen. I’ve written a new play which is hot off the press. And I have a couple of TV ideas too.
You never know what’s going to come to fruition and what’s going to fall apart but the trick is, as Ray’s dad says in Sunny Afternoon, “Never give up, never back down — and never, ever forget who you are.”
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Show: Sunny Afternoon
Dates: Tuesday 4 – Saturday 8 November 2025
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