Watching Buddy at the New Theatre on Monday I was struck anew at the fact that Holly’s stellar career lasted less than two years from his first hit in 1957 to his untimely death in an air crash in 1959.

Yet this award-winning show was created not as an elegy for doomed youth but as a celebration of his extraordinary body of work — and the production really delivers on this.

Oh my word, there is a lot to celebrate!

With so many songs to fit in to the musical, the hit numbers come thick and fast throughout, all delivered with high-octane performances by the excellent Roger Rowley as Buddy and Scott Haining and Adam Flynn as his Crickets.

Following them from their humble beginnings in Lubbock, Texas, to worldwide success, the story needs to be told with the use of a set design that is both ingenious and spectacular — and that has certainly been well supplied by Adrian Rees. I am also impressed by how well the show is scripted — it’s very funny but in a good-natured way. There’s a great skit when the band are booked at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre by a promoter who had incorrectly assumed that they were black.

This scene also includes a terrific rendition by Lydia Fraser of Shout, which rocked the rafters.

Other stand out performances include Jason Blackwater as The Big Bopper and Will Pearce as Ritchie Valens.

In a stunning re-imagining of their final concert with Holly before the fateful plane journey together, the energy of the whole cast is thrilling. A swift lowering of the curtain, revealing Buddy’s guitar in a spotlight, was a tasteful and appropriate way to reference the offstage tragedy.

For a moment I thought that was the finale — but no, far from it, as the exuberant concert reprises in all its glory.

When they play O Boy! the whole audience are on their feet dancing — and that included on press night the Oxford Mail’s Peter Unsworth and myself.

Though the show was heavily supported by long-time Buddy Holly fans I also noticed quite a few younger people in audience hand-jiving along with the rest. This really goes to show, I think, that this truly is a production that appeals to people of all ages.

Buddy
New Theatre, Oxford
Until Saturday
Box office: Call 0844 871 3020 or visit atgtickets.com/oxford