Get Down Tonight Review – The story of KC and the Sunshine Band fades into somber meta-music | stage

FFifty years after the release of the hit song that gave this musical its name, KC and the Sunshine Band are touring North America, such is the unwavering love for their radiant disco music. Most of the audience who descends on This Afternoon — one of the show’s four weekly morning shows — likely knows these songs from the first time around. The 12-inch records used to frame the stage, their center labels glowing in candy colors, are a testament to the discography at director and choreographer Lisa Stevens’ disposal.

Twenty numbers arranged by Mark Crosland are spread over an 80-minute production which doesn’t give much room for character development. So it’s maddening to discover that this is also one of those shows where the question of how to tell the story becomes an ongoing discussion for the characters on stage rather than a matter for the writers’ room. Bandleader Harry Wayne Casey (“KC”), played by Ross Harmon, has barely been introduced before his friend Dee (Paige Fenlon) teaches him 11 a.m. numbers and musical theater directions.

The tale of how Casey forms a band and makes lifelong friendships, while his gang falls in and loses in love with each other, is always well sung but constantly interrupted by their boring conversations about “environment” and “plot progression” with references to musical sensations including Hamilton. Get Down Tonight can only get worse from such comparisons, and the scenes in the recording studio (with Otto Williams’ irresistible bassline) and the group’s flashpoints have more than unfortunate similarities to The Harder They Come and Sterephonic respectively.

However, several songs are used cleverly to highlight the plot – particularly the love triangle between Casey, Orly (Adam Taylor) and Jenna (Annabelle Terry) which comes to a head during a nightclub scene that spans “Shake Your Booty” and “This Is the Way” (I Love It). There are smooth routines with arm rolls and disco fingers, performed in sparkling suits and shiny shoes by a band that accompanies the main quartet of actors. Other fashions of the era of chiffon and denim are on display in hazy pot-smoking scenes that include Dee cradling a Jim Morrison gatefold and tender discussions about the war in Vietnam. More can be made about how KC and the Sunshine Band, which formed in Florida, provide an alternative to what the show describes as an industry dominated by New York and Los Angeles.

Neither JF Lawton’s book nor Casey’s lyrics – who co-developed this often overly emotional show – have enough depth to prevent the overall Disco Week feel neatly with the occasional Magic Mike Live ambush. The production, presented in Edinburgh in 2024 under the title Who Do Ya Love?, has set design by Britta Geric, lighting by Guy Morjaria and costumes inspired by Tom Rogers’ original designs which all evoke the hedonism of the dance floor, but you never lose yourself in the story or the music.