It would be all too easy to give this musical, part cast with daytime TV actors, a kicking for being the latest show in a line of jukebox nostalgia-fests. So here goes.
It is inspired by the compilation album after which the show is named. These records surprisingly sold shed-loads and returned the likes of Roy Orbison, The Platters, The Everley Brothers and Bobbies Vee and Darin back to the charts.
So that is the music sorted. Now for a story to peg it on. Birds of a Feather sitcom writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran set most of the 1960s action in St Mungo’s Youth Club, where teenyboppers fall in love with music and with each other. Norman (Ben Freeman from Emmerdale) is the Elvis-like front man for The Conquests who do a fair job backing some good singing. Daisy Wood-Davis as Laura, a swot songwriter, is in love with Bobby (Scott Bruton from X Factor). But Bobby, who also writes songs, is in love with the town tease Sue (Jennifer Biddall from Hollyoaks).
Marks and Gran come up with some funny stuff, the funniest about Cliff Richard and The Shadows — “They haven’t got Cliff”, corrects one of the Conquests, “Cliff’s got them.” But this evening has little to do with musical theatre — the melding of story and music. It is more about cueing up the next song — 43 of them. Lovers of the album will enjoy it much more than lovers of musicals. (Tel: 0870 164 8787)