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Show: Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story
Society: Fairfield Halls Croydon
Venue: Ashcroft Playhouse, Croydon Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon, Surrey
Credits: Written and produced by Alan Janes. Featuring over 20 of Buddy Holly's greatest hits
Type: Sardines
Author: Paul Johnson
Performance Date: 11/11/2019
Buddy – the Buddy Holly Story
Paul Johnson | 13 Nov 2019 01:23am
Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear
On a freezing press night in Croydon this week, I certainly wouldn’t attempt to compare it to that ill-fated night sixty years ago on 3rd February 1959, when the lives of twenty-two-year-old Buddy Holly, seventeen-year-old Ritchie Valens, and J.P Richardson ‘The Big Bopper’ were taken in a horrific aeroplane crash… but it still seemed eerily apt to celebrate the remarkable, but short, twenty-two-month career of on e of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s true pioneers. It certainly was “The Day the Music Died”.
Even the small Monday-night crowd inside Croydon’s Ashcroft Playhouse were all up on their feet at the end dancing to Rave On, Johnny B Goode and Oh Boy. The fact that 2016 Strictly Come Dancing winner Joanne Clifton was not only attending her fourth performance of the show but also lead the audience’s jiving finale is probably testament enough for this irresistible show and its top-notch cast.
As the show celebrates its thirtieth anniversary tour since opening in Plymouth, taking the reins as Buddy himself and joining a long line of no less than thirty-two spectacle-wearing past performers – worldwide – is AJ Jenks who beautifully oozes the enthusiasm, energy, youth and character of this extraordinary singer. Alongside Jenks is a host of actor-musicians who slickly replicate The Crickets’ early sound; these include returning cast members, Josh Haberfield as drummer, Jerry Allison, and Joe Butcher as Joe B. Mauldin on double-bass.
The show – which charts the rise of The Crickets from their Country roots in Texas to the success of Buddy Holly’s solo career nearly two years later – has gotten even tighter, slicker and pacier than before, allowing a couple of extra songs to be added to the playlist; the inclusion of Jerry Lee Lewis’s Wild One to the band’s final concert in Clearlake, California, is a great choice. The other noticeable addition is the doubling role of Harry Boyd, who gets to play something of a narrator as he also drifts in and out of the roles of Lubbock DJ, Hipockets Duncan, and inspirational record producer, Norman Petty.
In 1989, Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, was the very first jukebox musical and it’s still probably one of the best, and certainly the most successful. In fact I’m always amazed at just how many songs Buddy Holly/The Crickets actually released. Just when you think you’ve heard the entire catalogue, up pops another big hit, and then another. From That’ll Be the Day, Everyday and Not Fade Away, to Peggy Sue, It’s So Easy and True Love Ways… with plenty of others along the way including Maybe Baby, Raining in My Heart, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore and, of course, Rave On and Oh Boy… the list simply goes on and on. Go and see for yourself!
Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story is playing at the Ashcroft Playhouse in Croydon’s Fairfield Halls until Saturday, 16th November. More at: www.fairfield.co.uk/whats-on/buddy
For more tour dates visit: www.buddythemusical.com
- : admin
- : 11/11/2019