Dear Evan Hansen has come to Downham Market!
The critically acclaimed Tony and Olivier Award winning musical is having its Norfolk amateur-licenced premiere this week. The show has a book by Steven Levenson and music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The story follows Evan Hansen, a high school senior with social anxiety, who gets embroiled in a misunderstanding with wide-reaching consequences as classmate, Connor Murphy, takes his own life.
This story covers a lot of complex themes, like mental health, social norms, and choices. The DADS Theatre Company deserve a lot of credit for taking on this challenging production so early on. DADS is a local amateur dramatics group, founded in 1947 and has put on a range of shows over the years. Following a rebrand in 2025, the group is continuing to push forwards with exciting productions, including Dear Evan Hansen!
DADS have worked with De Silva Theatrical Services Ltd to produce this show. It’s directed by Della-Marie Reed and you can tell Reed has put a lot of thought into the show and its themes, with the show eliciting a lot of emotion from the audience. James De Silva serves as musical director and with such a fantastic soundtrack, his direction does a great job bringing this to the stage, especially with a live band. Phil Melia worked on scenic construction. The set utilises a screen to show the online space Evan becomes entangled in, and pieces of set are brought in relevant to the scene and this works well.
The cast had access to a welfare officer, Scott Wood, with the heavy themes this production covers, to prioritize the mental health of the cast. It was great to see this level of care put in, and it’s clear on stage this allowed the cast to give it their all. The ensemble consists of Abby Clarke, Abby Foster, Darrell Kerrison, and Meg Abbott. They added a lot of impact to scenes they featured in, such as in the powerful act 1 finale, “You Will Be Found”.
Erin Richardson plays Alana Beck, a high school student who helps Evan in her attempt to feel more visible. She is perfect here, very confident in what she’s doing, and with great vocals complimenting that. Jo Ward plays Jared Kleinman, Evan’s friend by family connection. Jo had had some great comedic timing throughout the show, especially in “Sincerely Me”, which had the audience laughing, creating some great levity.
Phil Melia plays Larry Murphy, Connor’s dad. We know Phil from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by the Watlington Players, and it’s great to see him back! He did a great job at showing Larry’s initial steadfast nature, to letting his emotion come through as he comes to term with his son’s death. He works with his real life wife, Sarah Melia, who is terrific as Cynthia Murphy. The emotion she displays at the loss of Connor was harrowing and must’ve been so draining for her but as an audience member, it worked brilliantly even if it was tough to watch.
Harrison Southgate plays Connor Murphy who has a tough job playing a hardened version of the character at the start of the show, then becoming a manifested version of a character in Evan’s head. He exuded a lot of energy and had some natural chemistry with Evan, and made the scenes where Evan pretends to be friends with Connor very believable.
Izzy Lanchester plays Zoey Murphy, Connor’s sister. Lanchester portrays a very reserved character confidently, and you can feel her struggle as Zoey lets her guard down as the show progresses. We like “Requiem”, and Lanchester nails her parts in the song. Beccy Pooley plays Heidi Hansen, Evan’s mum. Pooley does a great job conveying Heidi’s struggle with grappling her work life with caring for Evan. The highlight of Pooley’s performance was “So Big/So Small”. You could hear a pin drop in the audience during the song, and by the end you could hear teary audience members collecting themselves.
Joseph Tierney portrays the titular Evan Hansen and was brilliant. Evan has distinct mannerisms throughout the show which Joseph handles really well. We knew from Titanic the Musical his vocals are incredibly strong, and Dear Evan Hansen has some songs for Evan that make great use of these. He performed “Words Fail” beautifully, another song we like, and it was gut wrenching to experience Tierney’s Evan reveal all. A stellar performance from Joseph.
The cast and crew have put on a stunning show that’s not to be missed. Many thanks to DADS Theatre Company for the complimentary tickets to this production. Dear Evan Hansen runs until 30 May. Book your tickets now!
Chris.
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