BWW Reviews: BUDDY , New Wimbledon Theatre, September 19 2011

Standing in front of the statue of Elvis Presley outside Las Vegas' Hilton Hotel and reading of his 1000 shows there, I wondered how much I would have paid, knowing what I know now, for a ticket in 1972. I looked at the dollars in my wallet, then at my bank card and then at my credit card and calculated how much I could muster - and decided that it would be all that and more. In Vegas, fellow worshippers of The King have the excellent Viva Elvis show to compensate them (Cirque de Soleil do a much better job on Elvis than on The Beatles), but England lacks the destination hotels required to make such shows viable. In England, we have tribute bands and tribute shows, which can be variable to say the least.

One of the oldest of such is Buddy (at The New Wimbledon Theatre until Saturday 24 September and on tour) a rip-roaring celebration of a life that lasted barely longer then the show's 22 years since its West End debut. The story is orthodox pop starlet rags to riches, but without the drugs, decline and demons, as the plane crash that took Buddy's life along with the Big Bopper and Richie Valens, preserved him perfectly, tragically, innocently in our eyes. The small town kid from Lubbock, Texas was determined to play his country-inflected rock 'n' roll, made it big, married on a whim and lived the dream all too briefly.

But it was long enough to make some great records (though, as has been said about BrIan Wilson's intro to California Girls, if all Buddy Holly did was record True Love Ways, he'd have been remembered as a musical genius) and to influence hugely and obviously the men who followed him in the 60s. It is a credit to the production that they squeeze in plenty of razzmatazz, plenty of schmaltz and plenty of audience participation, but put the songs centre-stage forward and pay full justice to them. Roger Rowley does a grand job as our hero and is supported by a fine band and some superb accapella from the three female backing singers. 

As the encore boomed out, in the stalls people were on their feet and dancing: teenagers, mums, dads and, touchingly, a handful who were Buddy's contemporaries - had he lived, he would be 74 today (and only six weeks older than ex-Stone Bill Wyman). Conjecture is pointless, but the geeky kid from Texas might have written Sgt Pepper's five years before two men who always recognised the immense talent behind the glasses - it's a talent that this show honours to the full.