I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know much about Buddy Holly before today, but I’m glad a trip to Norwich enlightened me as to what a figure this guy was. Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story takes center stage at Norwich Theatre Royal.
Opening in 1989, with a book by Alan James, the musical has been a smash hit for over 30 years during its different incarnations. The story follows Buddy Holly (Joe Sterling) as he navigates life from the early days of his short career, to his peak stardom, to his untimely death aged just 22 years old. With it, comes Buddy’s greatest hits from his career featuring songs I’d sung in the car all my life!
The musical is similar to other musical biographies with a story of Buddy’s life scattered between iconic musical numbers. The difference here though is the musical numbers definitely take a spotlight, with some larger gaps between new story developments. It’s best to consider this a biographical drama, perhaps as Stereophonics was, with musical numbers interspersed. That’s not to say this is a bad thing to be clear, and much of the time it felt like being in a concert with some nice story interludes to add some context to the music.
Supporting characters were very well utilised here to bounce off Buddy, with Tyrone Jones (Miguel Angel) and Marlena Madison (Laura-Dene Perryman) being a great source of tension, then humour during Buddy’s gig in Harlem. The Crickets were all charismatic and were portrayed with a lot of energy. You can tell the cast had a great time!
Of course Buddy Holly is a very important character to get right in the story, and Sterling, as the alternate Buddy, did a great job and portraying Buddy’s staunch stance on his individualism and his sincerity his interactions with other characters. We also saw the darker side of Holly, as he split from the Crickets to go solo. All in all, a great characterisation!
Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story runs from the 17th to 21st February. Book the few remaining tickets left!
Chris
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