Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story was off the scale. It’s the first time the West End’s classic jukebox musical has been done on the fringe stage like this and for two hours on Tuesday night we might just as well have been in central London Theatreland rather than in Highgate Village. There were a few pals, some supporter relatives in there somewhere but the standing ovation was fully merited.
 

The show is always a winner on paper, although director John Plews has snipped here and there, cutting out a few flabby bits and adapting it to the smaller confines. (Note: It’s small but there’s still a movable stage that they are very proud of.)

The real trick is in the casting: newcomer Roger Rowley is a better Buddy than the one I saw at the Duchess Theatre when it was a big ticket show a couple of years ago.

His carefully observed, adroit performance captures Holly’s thirsty ambition to step beyond the ho-humming world of Country and Western and the racial bigotry that divided 1950s American music.
 

The first time many Americans heard Brown Eyed Handsome Man, that rattling Chuck Berry song, was when Holly covered it with affection. Rowley bashes it out here like a steam train. From that song on, you can’t fail to be hooked.

Holly helped turn music on its head, splicing hillbilly odes with the rock’n’roll power that Berry, Bo Diddley and others had got people dancing with. 

Buddy himself helped develop this devil’s music, influencing another generation of musicians with the craft of That’ll Be The Day and Peggy Sue. And all before the age of 22, when he died alongside The Big Bopper (Chantily Lace) and Richie Valens (La Bamba) in a plane crash in Iowa. 
 

This show’s electricity makes you ask once more that question about what more Holly might have achieved if that small aircraft had stayed in the air. But it’s not all about Rowley’s splendid impersonation. The rest of the cast – some slightly off-key accents aside – are on form.

Actors who play instruments, they effortlessly swap tools on stage. Deanna Farnell jolts between keys and bass guitar, Richie Hart from guitar to trumpet and Nicky Swift from sax back to keys. By the end, all are on stage and urging the audience to join them there too. Buddy may have flown into the unknown but it’s like one big, old fashioned rock’n’roll party. Don’t be worried about gatecrashing it, they’d love to see you there.