It’s easy to bandy the term ‘crowd-pleaser’ around in a cosy, even vaguely euphemistic way. As if, in our current rather grim times and notoriously febrile environment for new theatre, making something that puts bums in seats and smiles on faces is somehow easy or a given.

In truth, configuring all the requisite cogs and wheels to successfully stage a new musical that has legs, laughs and audience love is no mean feat. Even quality offerings can struggle to get out of the gate (see this year’s sadly ill-fated Bonnie & Clyde tour), whilst creative duds and misfires abound.

So colour it a triumph, then, that the much-anticipated Steps musical, Here & Now, lands not only as, yes, a crowd pleaser, but indeed an unabashedly camp, glitzy, irrepressible one at that.

We’re firmly in the ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’ section of the seaside supermarket in this spritely, feel-good romp that plays out to the hits and favourites of the pop supergroup. Four best friends navigate their way through the pitfalls, hardships and romantic entanglements of their own ‘Summer of Love’ after making a sacred pineapple pact (no, that isn’t a typo or autocorrect) to chase their heart’s desires.

“Here & Now doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking or blindingly original to the stage, but nor does it profess or need to.”

Shaun Kitchener’s book is tons of fun and keeps things mostly breezy and upbeat. What drama and peril there is remains mostly fizzy and surface-level. Will ‘Better Best Bargains’ close for good? Is the waspish, French-spouting Store Manager (Finty Williams) having an extramarital affair? Will shy, artistic Neeta (Hiba Elchickhe) hold off on crafting her effigies of Alison Hammond and muster up the courage to confess her feelings to hunky Ben (Dan Partridge)? Here & Now doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking or blindingly original to the stage, but nor does it profess or need to.

What Kitchener, along with director Rachel Kavanaugh do so well here is allow the normalcy and even humdrum elements of the show’s premise to be the grounding and connective tissue for what ends up being a genuinely lovely celebration of friendship and camaraderie. The core four – Rebecca Lock’s Caz, Hiba Elchikhe’s Neeta, Sharlene Hector’s Vel and Blake Patrick Anderson’s Robbie – are a loveable, winning quartet. To single any of them out would feel remiss – they work beautifully as a foursome, are all knockout vocalists and each brings charisma, heart and humour to spare to their individual characters. The bonds feel real, the laughs (and tears) earned and the chemistry between the four leads palpable throughout. And of course, it’s all positively littered with Easter eggs and in-jokes that Steps fans will hoover up.

Perhaps most impressive though, is how remarkably organic it all feels as a piece of jukebox musical theatre. The implementation of what for many will be iconic and definitive pop hits is intuitive and, rarely for a jukebox, crafted in way that does a solid job of propelling forward the narrative and momentum. There’s a couple of numbers that feel a little clunkier and sudden in their implementing, but on the whole this is nearing Mamma Mia levels of fusion.

“…it’s all positively littered with Easter eggs and in-jokes that Steps fans will hoover up.”

Kavanaugh and Olivier-winner Matt Cole go to town on the set pieces for the big toe-tappers, such as the giddily bonkers ‘Half Price Hoedown’ of ‘5, 6, 7, 8’ and high camp dragnificence of ‘Chain Reaction’ (courtesy of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’s River Medway). Tom Rogers’ unapologetically bold, neon, oh-so-Steps staging amplifies the glam of it all considerably, with Gabriella Slade’s costumes carrying a similarly technicolor thread.

It’s busy, brassy and unapologetically played broad. But so too does Here & Now take its time to pause and invest in its more delicate beats, too. Lock’s searing, resonant takes on ‘Heartbeat’ and ‘One for Sorrow’ are not only vocally stunning, but carry a heavy emotional thwack, too. And then there’s the playful cuteness of Hector’s ‘It’s the Way You Make Me Feel’ alongside Helen Colby’s Tracey, or the giddy hijinks of ‘Say You’ll Be Mine’.

“Lock’s searing, resonant takes on ‘Heartbeat’ and ‘One for Sorrow’ are not only vocally stunning, but carry a heavy emotional thwack, too.”

With recent announcements that Birmingham will not be the end of the road for the show (a UK tour embarking from September 2025) hardly coming as a surprise, there’s a fair – and deserved – chance that we’ll be going wild in the aisles with Caz, Val, Neeta and Robbie for many more ‘Summers of Love’ to come.

Bring it on. Here & Now doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Nor does it seek to. It takes a catalogue of beloved pop hits and hands them over to a seriously impressive company and creative team who craft fabulous, funny, feel good theatre with them. By most comparable metrics in the industry, you could even make a case for saying it doesn’t have any right to be as good as it is.

It arrives as one of the freshest, funniest new musical offerings of recent memory and is – no trace of euphemism or side-eye here – an unpretentious, unapologetic crowd pleaser of the most Steptacular order.