Dear Evan Hansen, I’m a wreck after watching you – Bravo! Review, Royal and Derngate

I’ll be up front – I went into this review thinking most musical theatre leaves me cold. Except The Book of Mormon of course. Oh, and Hamilton, Chicago and Matilda. Maybe The Sound of Music. Er…and West Side Story.

Alright, well maybe musical theatre only drives me nuts when the singing involves that Americanised, elongated vowel thing they dooooowww, of which there is plenty in the multi-award-winning Dear Evan Hansen, which kicked off its UK tour in Northampton and runs until Saturday (Jan 18).

Dear Evan Hansen (#DEH) is a new one for me. Not to my teen daughter, who knew the songs, a rough idea of the story and warned me there would inevitably be a load of people in tears by the end of it. Blimey.

But if you fancy being made to laugh, cry and generally pushed through an emotional mangle for a couple of hours by a fast-paced story with a superb cast and elite stagecraft, really, do try and get tickets while it’s in town. It’s an extraordinary thing to watch – mainly for the very brilliant – and admirably exhausting – performance of Ryan Kobel as the titular Evan. He’s excellent throughout, and definitely a rising star.

Evan is a shy, nervous and lonely teenager whose concerned mum Heidi (Alice Fearn) is trying to hold down her job and studies while deeply worried for her insular, anxious son. She enlists an (unseen) therapist who encourages Evan to write himself a letter each day extoling the virtues of ‘being yourself’. In a sharp twist of fate (no spoilers), Evan ends up being mistakenly though of as the best friend of a recently deceased school loner Connor Murphy (a suitably pale and moody Killian Thomas Lefevre).

Connor’s distressed and fractured (but well-off) family are given respite from the horror of Connor’s death, by an apparent suicide letter, leaving Evan knee deep in a white lie that escalates into full-blown social media frenzy, led by equally lonely high-achiever Alana Beck (Vivian Panka).

The underlying message of DEH is that everyone is battling their inner demons in one way or another and the cast do incredibly well to keep the story interesting – and hilarious – when the audience might be picking holes in the plot. Why in an age of social media doesn’t anyone question anything about the friendship, or the death, or the inevitable claims of teenagers to have been more deeply involved in the drama than they could possibly have been? Welcome to modern life, where basic fact checking and ethics seem to have done a runner.

There are some very strong songs – the live orchestra is brilliant, if a little too powerful in the first half, sometimes drowning out the vocals for those of us in the stalls – but that could have just been a first-night issue that seemed to settle as the show progressed. I had a huge lump in the throat caused by the talented Lauren Conroy, as Connor’s sister Zoe Murphy, in Requiem (an unflinching song about the deeper reality of grief), powerfully supported by Richard Hurst as Connor’s stereotypical American ‘Man-dad’ Larry and able understudy Jessica Lim as bereaved mum Cynthia.

Definite fizzing in my nose caused by Alice Fearn’s Heidi in the powerful song So Big/So Small, filling in the backstory of Evan’s childhood when his father left. ‘The house felt so big, and I felt so small…‘ *Gulp.

There was extra drama off stage when an audience member in the packed auditorium had a medical incident just before the interval, expertly handled by Royal and Derngate staff, and after a terribly British spell of awkwardness under the house lights, the cast expertly restarted.

The second half bounded along with the audience inevitably waiting for the whole series of Evan’s white lies to come crashing down around him. Which it does. But at the heart is a plea for deeper empathy across the generational divide, and that taking a leap away from the safety of home – and your head – into the mess of Real Life is truly character-building for everyone, however frightening it may feel.

It’s a truly modern musical with some grit at its core – and I noticed as well as providing context and contacts in the programme, R&D also had a banner for Northampton’s own young persons’ support chaity The Lowdown displayed in the foyer. And no, it’s not ‘woke’ to provide support around the themes of mental health and suicide, it’s empathetic humanity. Which is A Good Thing.

Dear Evan Hansen is a great show, and a reminder that Northampton has some really great touring theatre available for much less than a trip to London (or Broadway for that matter). If you can lay your hands on tickets before it moves off to the south coast, I’d recommend.

For tickets and information, visit the Royal and Derngate box office or call 01604 624811. Be quick as it’s almost sold out.