Warring brothers, chaos and sublime music - it's The Kinks!
Ten years after playing him in the West End, Oliver Hoare returns to the role of Dave Davies, brother of Ray, in the Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon, the Christmas show at Brighton Theatre Royal this year (December 17-January 3).
In fact, he is playing Dave opposite the same Ray he had ten years ago, Danny Horn.
“I did the West End with Danny and now we've returned to it. We did Chicago earlier this year (three months for the US premiere of the show) and now we've got the tour and it was a really surreal experience remembering things that are so deep in your body. I did 15 months in West End and it was the first time I had ever done a show in the West End. I remember turning up at the tube station just before the press night thinking that this was the biggest moment in my career so far, and I absolutely loved it.
“I just love the music. I've loved the music since I was a kid. My dad was a huge Kinks fan. I grew up listening to them before I could put faces to the voices, and then my dad took me to a Ray solo show when I was 16 years old. And I think that was maybe the beginnings of this show. Ray is a wonderful storyteller between songs and maybe that's how this started and then later there I am actually meeting Ray in person!
“He was nothing but courteous and supportive to me. The show is through the eyes of Ray and it is Ray’s version of Dave and I've always kept that very clear in my mind out of respect to Dave. When Dave came to see the show it was a very strange thing. He sat there in the box and afterwards he went to the pub and I had some pints with Dave and it was great. They say don't meet your heroes but he lived up to everything that you would want him to be.”
Inevitably Oliver has a different perspective on it now ten years on: “Ten years ago I was more angsty and I mean that in a positive way. I was everything that you would want to be when you're in your 20s, anxious to taste everything and I just loved it. And they were the first punk band, the first heavy metal band. We played the songs as they should be played, we played them loud. It really felt like we were in a band.”
And it was great to explore Dave's role in the band: “Dave was the lifeblood in many ways. He was the poster boy for rock 'n' roll. He was like a little scientist in his childhood home in Muswell Hill. He was connecting different amps together and trying to find different sounds and he ended up finding this broken gnarly sound. Ray was a poet and he is a poet and Dave is a poet but he gave the band the punk rock vibe that every rock ‘n’ roll band needs. He was more essential to the band than he was ever made to feel.”
His and Ray’s relationship was a famously difficult one: “With families there is never a shortage of falling out. But the guys were doing it in public. They were brothers at the end of the day. They were working-class boys that had not learnt the etiquette of how best to behave and it all played out in public. They were chaotic on stage and off stage but what I love about them is that when they are not playing music it feels like it is all about to fall apart but the second they manage to put that chaos into their music, then all is forgiven.”