Dear Evan Hansen is a powerful musical drama for our social media age.

On its 2016 Broadway opening, the production won six Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Score, with the subsequent London production picking up three Olivier Awards, including for Best New Musical and Best Original Score.

Though the timescales may vary, every theatrical production has a life cycle that inevitably means there comes a time when the curtain comes down for the last time.

Dear Evan Hansen is nearing the end of hugely successful runs at the Noel Coward Theatre in London's West End and the Music Box Theatre on Broadway.

So, is it worth taking the opportunity to get along to Dear Evan Hansen before the closes in New York (18 September 2022) and London 22 October 2022?

You better believe it!

It's in this part of a review that I look to include a plot synopsis.

I came to Dear Evan Hansen, however, with little knowledge and no preconceptions as to what I was going to see and if I would enjoy it (or otherwise).

I think that's the best to leave it that way for you.

Without giving too much away, it is suffice to say the eponymous Evan is an American high school senior struggling with psychological issues and desperate feelings of inadequacies and of social isolation.

This is all, of course, made all the more chilling given the appalling gun outrages committed in the States.

His mother's relentless striving to create a better future for her son alone, allows little time to recognise or respond to the trauma he is experiencing.

Then life changes, suddenly and irrevocably, for Evan, but the thing that precipitates this change is based on a lie.

The lie itself, and its resulting consequences, takes Evan and all those around him on a journey that spirals up before careering out of control.

What I can tell you is that Dear Evan Hansen is a powerful and truly moving theatrical experience.

The staging, dominated by transient images of the social media age, sets the scene to a 'T'.

Entering the auditorium, and before things get underway, it is ironically pertinent how many of us are absorbed in digital communication on our smart phones while this is being replicated on stage.

The production unfolds, with gentle humour spiced with laugh out loud moments inevitably leading to darker place.

The stirring musical element of the production is used to splendid effect with the band excellent, but the score is never allowed to dominate the prose.

That both come together to such stirring effect, is due to eight strong cast whose collective performances are absolute dynamite.

Although praise is rightly heaped on Olivier Award-winning Sam Tutty for his transfixing Evan, this would not have the impact it does were he not be able to feed off the consummate performances of every other actor on stage.

So imperative to mention and laud Hannah Queshi; Doug Colling; Mitchel Zhangazha; Rebecca McKinnis; Lauren Ward; Rupert Young and Iona Fraser.

It is the ensemble that makes Dear Evan Hansen the deeply affecting production it is.

See it while you can. You are likely to be the loser if you do not do so!

Useful links

www.dearevanhansen.com/london

www.dearevanhansen.com/broadway

www.dearevanhansen.com/tour/