As Grease roars back on to the stage of the Oxford Apollo, like a pink Ford Thunderbird firing on all cylinders, it is astonishing to realise that this glorious celebration of rock 'n' roll is just one year short of its 30th birthday, writes Chris Gray.

It was conceived by writers Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey amid the psychedelic pseudery and bubblegum banality of 1971 as an affectionate tribute to musical styles with a concentration on falsetto, a capella and doo-wops which then seemed gone forever.

Strange to say, their very act of creation played a crucial role in the renaissance of rock 'n' roll culture, thus ensuring its survival into a new millennium.

Grease became the longest-running show in Broadway history and then, in 1978, earned millions of new fans around the world with the enormous success of the film version, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

So deeply embedded in our consciences are their great performances that the biggest task facing singers in the roles today is to give audiences the Danny and Sandy we have come to expect, while not simply offering a slavish imitation of their celluloid prototypes.

Steven Houghton and Irene Warren brilliantly succeed in travelling this narrow path at the Apollo he striding high on black Cuban-heeled boots which, with the six-inch quiff Brylcreemed hair at the other end, make him look so much taller than he did in TV's London's Burning.

Irene a former star of Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and Starlight Express makes a perfect peach of a Sandy, whose prim and proper attitudes mean she's altogether too stuck up for the Pink Ladies, and especially their raunchy leader Rizzo (Rachel Hale), and therefore something of a social liability for 'Mr Cool' Danny.

Such 'plot' as the show contains largely concerns his ill-concealed attempts to deny his admiration for her, which began during those Summer Nights we hear about so delightfully during their early duet.

Rizzo's own up-and-down (rather literally) affair with Kenickie (Samuel James Hudson) provides another thread to the story, along with the rather less assured efforts at romance involving other members of the T Birds and Pink Ladies this is the fifties, don't forget!

How could we, amid such characteristic gaucheries of the period as the Hand Jive splendidly delivered by gleaming-toothed DJ Vince Fontaine (Paul Burnham) and the gaudily bedecked burger palace where Danny and Sandy finally realise You're the One That I Want?

The show, featuring a gutsy nine-piece band under musical director Stephen Owens, is on until Saturday. Don't miss.