“…when the stage finally falls dark, no one is going away unhappy.” Buddy Holly: The Buddy Holly Story is close as it gets to reliving a little musical history.
📍 Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 15 – 18 Mar 2023
🕖 7:30pm
🕖 Running time: Approx 2 hours 35 minutes (one interval)
🎬 Director: Matt Salisbury
🪑 Writer and Producer: Alan Janes
🩰 Choreographer: Miguel Angel
🎼 Musical Director: Dean Elliott
🎵 Sound Designer: Pete Cox (for Thames Audio Systems)
⚒️ Designer: Adrian Rees
💡Lighting Designer: Darren Coopland
🎂 Suitable for all ages
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Audio Induction Loop
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story has a fair claim to being the world’s most successful Jukebox musical. Premiered in the West End back in 1989, it has been in production worldwide since. Not its first visit to Edinburgh, and almost certainly not its last, the show remains in fine fettle.
The show is best understood as two immersive recreation concerts linked by a little backstory drama for context. We first meet Buddy (AJ Jenks) and musical chums Joe B. Mauldin (Joe Butcher) & Jerry Allison (Josh Haberfield) playing the Grand Bowl, in their hometown of Lubbock, Texas. The safe Country Rose is soon swept away by Rip it Up, and after an ill-fated experience with Decca Records, their friendly local DJ Hipockets Duncan (Thomas Mitchells) hooks them up with producer Norman Petty (Mitchells again) down in Clovis, New Mexico. It’s there Buddy meets future wife Maria Elena (Daniella Agredo Piper) on the reception desk.
The remainder of the first act is then dominated by a their historic 1957 concert at the Harlem Apollo, wherein much fun is made of their being the first white act to walk the stage. The second act is almost completely given over to a re-run of that fateful night in 1959, and Holly’s last appearance at the Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake. The following doomed air-trip, as with quite a few other narrative elements is narrated by Mitchells, either disembodied or in character, a consistent chorus to proceedings.
It would be a mistake to think of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story as merely a fancied up tribute act. It’s the dramatic context which allows the audience to briefly imagine themselves back in time, and an ocean away. The supporting cast really go all in to create the world around Jenks and Co. particularly Miguel Angel who dazzles in both acts, first as Tyrone Jones, host at the Apollo, and then a scene stealing Richie Valens in the second. Filling out that Clear Lake card, Christopher Chandler dials his Big Bopper to 11 to please the crowd with an all-guns blazing Chantilly Lace.
Crucially, Jenks is a charismatic front man, making the most of his brief vignettes with his wife, and others to add a little depth to the on-stage character. He’s perfectly able with guitar and voice, and seems to enjoy limitless energy. By the time the show finally succumbs to the audience’s insistence for an all-out concert he’s more than happy to oblige.
Now if you’re looking for a warts and all Buddy Holly biopic, this is not the show for you. There are none of the legal issues that attended his relationship with Petty, and no sign of Buddy’s upbringing or pivotal relationship with his parents. However there is a lot of music, well performed by a cast who exhibit a dab hand with a wide array of instruments. Stephenie Cremona certainly tickles the ivories very nicely, as well as playing a mean sax on top of a fun turn as Norman’s wife Vi Petty.
Pace wise, the show certainly picks up as it goes, the opening exposition slowing things a little until that first big curtain up. After that it’s all guns blazing pretty much to the end. What’s not in question is how thoroughly crowd pleasing the experience is, and how naturally it brings the audience to its feet to bop along. Cries of ‘more’ and ‘encore’ are definitely deserved, and when the stage finally falls dark, no one is going away unhappy.
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story plays the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from 15 to 18th March 2023. It is a BUDDY MUSICAL PRODUCTIONS (UK) LTD production.
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