Review: Stewart Paterson, journalism student at Darlington College

THE deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson led to Don Mclean referring to the terrible plane crash as 'the day music died.'

However seeing Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, confirms that the legacy of the spectacled star still very much lives on, in what can only be described as a flamboyant and spectacular extravaganza.

The production itself serves as a living, breathing biography of Buddy's pioneering rise to become the breakthrough act, which laid the foundations for the future of rock and roll.

Glen Joseph, who plays Buddy, dons the almost mythical, signature thick-framed glasses adorned by the legend, alongside Adam Flynn and Scott Haining as Jerry Allison and Joe B Mauldin, who make up an impressively identical Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

The play takes the audience on a real ‘50s adventure – an overview of of Buddy's life, from his talent-supressed days as a suffocated rock and roller, held back by by the Texan country-music scene, to his sensational Winter Dance Party Tour of 1959.

It is the little things in this play that construct a genuine 50s atmosphere - radio jingles for new-fangled washing machines, the outrageous costumes, and social attitudes of the time are all presented in a fitting manner.

But it is the almost live music that really gives this production that special something.

This is a not just a performance for music lovers, or those tempted to take a trip down memory lane to re-experience the sounds of the youth.

It is a story of triumph which anyone of any age can enjoy – about a thoroughly likable and somewhat geeky young man who defies the social conventions and hampering attitudes of the time, to reinvent music as we knew it.

Buddy Holly: The Buddy Holly Story is a must see for anyone with even the slightest intrigue about the legendary superstar.