Full cast announced for HERE & NOW - The musical produced by Steps

The full cast has been announced for the UK & Ireland tour of the brand-new musical HERE & NOW, presented by UK pop sensation, Steps, which stops off at Newcastle Theatre Royal (Tue 28 Oct – Sun 2 Nov).

Ben Darcy (Pretty Woman, West End) will play Ben and Lauren Woolf (I Should Be So Lucky, UK Tour) will play Tracey, alongside the previously announced principal cast members Rebecca Lock as Caz, Jacqui Dubois as Vel, Blake Patrick Anderson as Robbie, Rosie Singha as Neeta, Finty Williams as Patricia, River Medway as Jem, Chris Grahamson as Gareth, Edward Baker-Duly as Max and John Stacey as Lesley.

The cast is completed by Georgia Christofi (professional debut), Kade Ferraiolo (I Should Be So Lucky, UK Tour), Albert Green (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, West End), Harry Jack (Les Misérables, West End), Casey Jay (Grease the Musical, Royal Caribbean), Charlie-Jay Johnson (Here & Now, Birmingham Alexandra Theatre), Rosemary Annabella Nkrumah (MAMMA MIA! The Party, O2 Arena), Dean Rickards (professional debut), Markus Södergren (Here & Now, Birmingham Alexandra Theatre), Genevieve Taylor (Wicked, West End) and Jessica Vaux (Starlight Express, Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre).

Featuring Steps’ most beloved hit songs, HERE & NOW has an original book by Shaun Kitchener and is produced by the band and ROYO with Pete Waterman. It will be directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, with choreography by Olivier Award-winning Matt Cole and Matt Spencer-Smith as musical supervisor, orchestrator and arranger.

Welcome to seaside superstore Better Best Bargains, where it’s Friday night, the vibe is right, and everyone’s dancing in the aisles. But when Caz discovers the shelves are stocked with lies and betrayal, the summer of love she and her friends dreamed of suddenly feels like a tragedy. Have they all lost their chance of a ‘happy ever after’? Or does love have other plans in store…

Steps (Claire Richards, Faye Tozer, Ian ‘H’ Watkins, Lee Latchford-Evans and Lisa Scott-Lee) are the UK’s most successful mixed sex pop group of all time, with 14 top five singles, 4 number one albums, 22 million record sales, 500 million streams and 11 sold-out national arena tours under their belts. The band’s hits include #1 singles Tragedy/Heartbeat and Stomp, the gold certified One For Sorrow & Better Best Forgotten, the silver certified 5,6,7,8, Last Thing On My Mind, Love’s Got A Hold Of My Heart, Chain Reaction, all of which will feature in the musical alongside many more.

Steps’ 2017 comeback tour sold out all 300,000 tickets, making it one of the biggest pop tours of the year. The band have since continued to release new music including two further iTunes #1 singles, the Sia-penned What The Future Holds in 2020 and the Michelle Visage duet Heartbreak In This City in 2022. In 2022 Steps celebrated their 25th anniversary with a headline summer tour and released the #1 album Platinum Collection which means they join ABBA, Rolling Stones and Stereophonics as the only groups in UK history to score #1 albums in four consecutive decades.

Musical supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Matt Spencer-Smith, set design by Tom Rogers, costume design by Gabriella Slade, lighting design by Howard Hudson, sound design by Adam Fisher, wigs and hair design by Sam Cox, make-up design by Jackie Saundercock, casting by Will Burton for Grindrod Burton Casting, Music Technology by Phij Adams and Production Management by Setting Line.

HERE & NOW plays Newcastle Theatre Royal Tue 28 Oct – Sun 2 Nov. Tickets can be purchased at www.theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 0191 232 7010.