Be Bop a Lula! continues at the Ambassadors Theatre, London and on tour
Be Bop a Lula! plays at the Ambassadors Theatre, London on the first Wednesday of every month. Future shows at the theatre are on 1 April, 6 May, 3 June, 1 July and 5 August (see below for tour dates).
Star rating: 4 stars ★ ★ ★ ★
Not that any of the main rock‘n’roll protagonists strutting their musical stuff at the suitably intimate Ambassadors Theatre needed it, but four huge images of icons featured from the era – Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Billy Fury and Roy Orbison – dominated the backdrop, looming ominously large over proceedings, almost daring anyone not to get their music absolutely right.
Stripped back to basics, this is refreshingly a show without frills, but plenty of serious musical thrills thanks to the collective musical talents of Gavin Stanley (Cochran and Fury), Lars Young (Vincent and Orbison) and highly experienced backing band, The Wildcats.
Presented by Lord Tim Croxford, Stanley and Young, the radio show style format is overseen by Spencer Evoy as the Rocking Reverend DJ Spencer and his wonderfully engaging character is the ‘creative glue’ which holds the show together throughout. It’s hard to decide which is more impressive, his effortlessly brilliant sax playing or his unfeasibly flexible lower limbs – surely the bendiest legs in showbusiness.
The shiniest suit in the Western world clearly belongs to Stanley, aka Billy Fury, starting the show dressed in a fabulously brash gold ‘whistle’ and belting out some faultless covers of the Liverpool-born rocker who, unusually for the era, wrote much of his own material.
Giving each of the four stars from yesteryear their own mini segment in rotation works really well here, and the mean and moody, scowling and dressed-in-black persona of Gene Vincent, performed impeccably by Lars Young, is the perfect foil for Stanley’s clean cut and spot-on Fury tribute.
A few tracks in here and you are left in no doubt whatsoever that these are not mere impressions, but rather accurate, serious musical homages by committed, experienced musicians.
If further proof was needed, that comes in the wonderfully wide-eyed, manic and totally irresistible form of Peter Gill as special guest, Jerry Lee Lewis – as mad as a box of frogs and belting the life out of a piano during ‘Great Balls of Fire’ (of course) and a fabulously OTT version of ‘Breathless’.
When you have the support of a backing band, The Wildcats, which includes the likes of Pete Pritchard on double bass who has played with Elvis’ guitarist Scotty Moore, Gerry Slattery on lead guitar who has worked with The Everly Brothers, then that calibre of musicianship is the perfect foundation on which to build a crescendo of top-class musical entertainment. When you add into that mix the high standard of vocals and guitar work by Stanley as Cochran and Young as Orbison, then what you have is a winning, audience-grinning formula.
An added bonus, certainly for one serious rock‘n’roll vinyl collector I spoke to at the interval was that this show doesn’t just trot out each of the artists’ hits. Of course, the Big O performs ‘Pretty Woman’ and ‘Billy Fury’ covers ‘Halfway to Paradise’, to name just a few, but these being serious aficionados, there’s plenty of lesser-played material covered too.
This is vibrant, clap along, and singalong stuff – and the audience loved it. One of Stanley’s hopes is that the show can slowly gain cult status – on this evidence, it has every chance of achieving that.
Derek Smith
www.theambassadorstheatre.co.uk
Tour dates for Be Bop a Lula! include: Harlow Playhouse (28 March), Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmonds (11 April), Westcliff Theatre, Clacton (1 May), Epstein Theatre, Liverpool (22 May), Civic Theatre, Rotherham (23 May), Fairfield Halls, Croydon (10 May), Congress Theatre, Cwmbran (17 October) and The Capit0l, Horsham (16 January 2016).
Readers may also be interested in:
Interview – Be Bop a Lula! star Gavin Stanley plays Eddie Cochran and Billy Fury
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