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18 Phonebox Magazine | November 2025Here & Now coming to Milton KeynesCast announced for music from Steps stage showThe cast of the new musical Here & Now, presented by UK pop sensation Steps, has been announced. The show comes to Milton Keynes Theatre from Tuesday, 31st March next year as part of a UK and Ireland tour.Returning from the successful original run in Birmingham will be Blake Patrick Anderson as Robbie, River Medway as Jem, Edward Baker Duly as Max and John Stacey as Lesley.Joining the principal cast are new cast members Jacqui as Vel, Chris Grahamson as Gareth and Rosie Singha as Neeta. Further casting is to be announced.Featuring Steps%u2019 most beloved hit songs, Here & Now has an original book by Shaun Kitchener and is produced by the band and ROYO with Pete Waterman. It will be directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, with choreography by Olivier Award-winning Matt Cole and Matt Spencer-Smith as musical supervisor, orchestrator and arranger.Welcome to seaside superstore Better Best Bargains, where it%u2019s Friday night, the vibe is right, and everyone%u2019s dancing in the aisles. But when Caz discovers the shelves are stocked with lies and betrayal, the summer of love she and her friends dreamed of suddenly feels like a tragedy. Have they all lost their chance of a %u2018happy ever after%u2019? Or does love have other plans in store%u2026 Steps (Claire Richards, Faye Tozer, Ian %u2018H%u2019 Watkins, Lee Latchford-Evans and Lisa Scott-Lee) are the UK%u2019s most successful mixed sex pop group of all time, with 14 top-fi ve singles, 4 number one albums, 22 million record sales, 500 million streams and 11 sold-out national arena tours under their belts. The band%u2019s hits include number 1 singles Tragedy/Heartbeat and Stomp, the gold certifi ed One For Sorrow and Better Best Forgotten, the silver certifi ed 5,6,7,8, Last Thing On My Mind, Love%u2019s Got A Hold Of My Heart, Chain Reaction, all of which will feature in the musical alongside many more. In 2022, Steps celebrated their 25th anniversary with a headline summer tour and released the number 1 album Platinum Collection. which means they join ABBA, the Rolling Stones and Stereophonics as the only groups in UK history to score number 1 albums in four consecutive decades.Here & Now brings the music of UK pop sensation Steps to Milton Keynes Theatre from Tuesday, 31st March until Saturday, 4th April 2026.Local group on the write trackAuthors%u2019 alliance celebrates a successful 2025 and aims to encourage more readers in the town.A local group is celebrating a year of encouraging reading, writing and a love of books with plans for more exhibitions and community initiatives this winter. The Olney Writing Group aims to foster a growing network of authors and poets as it works towards a commitment to continual learning and growth. This year the group%u2019s writers have attended and performed at open mic sessions around Olney, Bedford and Milton Keynes and attended several local Literary Festivals. It was responsible for last year%u2019s successful WordFest literary fair in the town%u2019s Olney Centre.%u201cWe were delighted to collaborate with the Cowper and Newton Museum in September for a performance of our own poems and those of William Cowper and Henry Alford,%u201d said group spokesman Jim Coley.With the upcoming festive season when everyone%u2019s minds turn to gifts, there%u2019s nothing like a good book by the fi re as an alternative to TV, believes the group. Three of its writers have their own recommendations:Libby Hartwell suggests %u2018The Street Where Santa Lives%u2019 by Harriet Howe for youngsters. Sue Upton suggests %u2018The Second Death of Locke%u2019 by Tori Bovalino for young adults. And Lizzie Cantopher suggests %u2018The Book of Doors%u2019 by Gareth Brown for adults.The Olney Writing Group poetry and prose anthology, launching in December, would also be a fantastic Christmas gift.%u201cOver the next few months, we will be organising book launches, a stall at Dickens, stalls at The Indie Book Festival in Milton Keynes on Saturday 25th October and perhaps another prose/poetry reading in conjunction with one of the local community initiatives,%u201d said Jim.