Writer: Alan Janes
Director:Matt Salisbury
It’s little wonder that this show has lasted for more than 14 years in the West End and has had over 10,000 UK performances. It is phenomenally successful and a sure fire hit with audiences who well before the end are toe tapping and clapping along to the exhilarating music. It cannot fail to tug along at the heartstrings and simultaneously thrill with a succession of popular hits delivered by a hugely talented cast of actors, singers and musicians. The show depicts all the drama, passion and excitement of Buddy Holly’s tragically short life, from his beginnings in Lubbock, Texas to his meteoric rise to fame and to his final legendary performance at The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Along the way the audience enjoys over two terrific hours of some of the greatest songs ever written, including That’ll Be The Day, Oh Boy, Everyday, Reet Petite, Shout, Long Tall Sally, Rave On, True Love Ways, La Bamba, Chantilly Lace, Johnny B. Goode, Raining In My Heart, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, and of course Peggy Sue which was going to originally be called Cindy Lou but got changed by the band on the advice of the drummer Jerry Allison (played by Josh Haberfield).
All the cast are uniformly excellent. The show gives them the opportunity to showcase their considerable talents to the utmost degree. All of them deserve to be mentioned by name but this must only go to a few. In its history there have been 27 different actors playing the lead role of Buddy and here Christopher Weeks proudly adds to that list. In both looks and sound he fits the part perfectly. Your reviewer wasn’t old enough to have seen the real Buddy Holly in concert but I imagine Weeks’ performance on stage must come pretty close to the real thing. The audience can feel themselves really present at one of his iconic stage performances and get an inkling of what it must have really felt and been like. Not only is Weeks a consummate musician but he brings an intimate poignancy to the role and conveys Buddy’s workaholic ethic alongside his innate shyness and vulnerability. Thomas Mitchells is outstanding in the multiple roles of “narrator” and various impresarios involved in Buddy’s story. He also spends a large part of the second half as one of the backing singers and has a whale of a time. Mention must also be made of two of the other main vocalists in the company, Christopher Chandler as The Big Bopper and Miguel Angel in the dual roles of Tyrone Jones and Ritchie Valens. Both have very powerful voices and deliver their iconic songs to the obvious enjoyment of the audience.
The staging and set are straightforward but highly effective, having far less room than the Pyramid at Glastonbury but evocative of the period and functional. The sound, needless to say, is rocking.
The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens were also killed when the small aircraft crashed on 3rd February 1959 compounding what was already a huge tragedy. To think that Holly was only 22 years old and had already left such a musical legacy, one wonders what else he might have achieved in his life.
Runs until 8th July 2023.
The Reviews Hub Score
A rip-roaring success
