On 13 December 2013, producer Sonia Friedman officially confirmed that a musical based around the early life of Ray Davies and the formation of The Kinks[1] would receive its world premiere at the Hampstead Theatre in spring 2014.

The show's premiere production began previews at the Hampstead Theatre in London on 14 April 2014, with its official opening night on 1 May, booking for a limited run until 24 May 2014.

After initial failure, the band's lead guitarist Dave Davies experimented and created a distorted power chord sound on the group's third single, "You Really Got Me".

Woven into the musical are the themes of the Davies brothers' sibling rivalry, management problems, their sister's untimely death, Ray's doomed marriage, and their subsequent banning from the United States following a dispute with the musicians' union.

On 21 October 2014, four preview tracks from the album, "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", "Dead End Street", "Too Much On My Mind/Tired of Waiting" and the show's title song "Sunny Afternoon" were released via SoundCloud.