Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story

This is a show with two distinct halves. The join is not a seamless one. Until the interval we are taken through Buddy Holly's rise to fame as he graduated from local radio stations (where the content was dictated by the sponsors as well as the owners) through equally small recording studios to full on-stage stardom.

All this is well handled in a series of short scenes which give space to Glen Joseph in the title role and shows how Holly's music developed through different genres until he finally found his own voice. The scenes at Harlem's Apollo Theater with Lydia Fraser and Dion D'Lucia are also good.

The story so far also has human interest in his relationship with his backing group the Crickets, with his first recording studio boss Norman (Peter Kenworthy) and with Puerto Rican Maria Elena (Vivienne Smith), the girl he married.

After the interval we lose the biographical element in favour of an odd sequence of tribute band style performances with audience participation. Reality jars in with the highlighting of a single guitar and voice-over recounting that Holly and two other performers died in an air crash.

It's almost as though the show didn't have the courage of its own convictions. But this is its 25th year, so perhaps the first half does outweigh the second after all.