Sometimes the stars align and fate smiles on a production. When Elizabeth Newman had the idea to stage the old Cliff Richard movie, with its theme of buses and travel, it seemed like a good-natured way of telling her audiences the Octagon was closed for refurbishment and on the road. Maybe she could even stage it on a bus.
How fortuitous, then, that the bright and airy Bolton Interchange, bringing rail and bus stations together, had not long opened and was ripe for theatrical intervention. Fortuitous, too, that local operator Vision Bus would be keen to lend her half-a-dozen vehicles. And why wouldn’t they? It’s a great, public-spirited idea.
Add to this the opening-night weather making us feel as if we are on a real summer holiday (even if the line about the English rain is turned on its head) and you get the sense of a show that was meant to be. Yes, it’s daft, yes, it’s throwaway, but when the actors grab coffee cups from the Greggs across the concourse or – spectacularly – do a song-and-dance routine on the steps of the town hall, where we’ve stopped to rescue a real-life Mini, you can’t imagine a happier place to be.
The good fortune continued when Newman realised the Octagon wouldn’t quite have to shut up shop. After sending us on a quick ride around the block, she and co-director Ben Occhipinti would be able to stage the bulk of Summer Holiday in the regular auditorium.
By the time we get there, spirits are high and actors and audiences are as one (the Cliff singalong on the top deck has seen to that). The cast turn out to be talented actor-musicians, marking time with Shadows-style instrumentals as each bus-load arrives and rattling through early-60s rock’n’roll-lite with breezy good cheer.
Inclusive, friendly, unpretentious, it’s a production of tremendous generosity. In truth, Newman has made her own luck, getting everyone from council officials to local businesses on side and willing it to work.
The stage adaptation by Michael Gyngell and Mark Haddigan, first seen in Blackpool in 1996, streamlines the plot, adds a few gags and works in a couple more Cliff hits. It’s the story of a gang of mechanics who renovate a double-decker and drive it to Europe, picking up a stranded musical trio and a stowaway as they go. Holiday romance ensues. This version takes steps away from the movie’s questionable sexual politics (Cliff and his workmates all but dragging the women on board) by casting Robert Jackson as one of the previously all-female singing group. Now when their car breaks down, there are no lady-driver cliches and when everyone falls in love, the romance is not exclusively heterosexual. Best of all, nobody comments on it.
As for the central love story, Michael Peavoy, as Don, has the kind of tall, dark and handsome looks – plus hints of a troubled background – that justifies Eleanor Brown’s attraction to him as Barbara. For her part, she makes light work of the boy-in-disguise conceit and proves herself an independently minded woman even as she’s dancing with abandon. There are musicals with more consistent soundtracks, but the half-speed rendition of The Young Ones is gorgeous.
All this plus Amanda Stoodley’s playful set design of primary coloured national flags and passing scenery makes it the feelgood hit of the summer.
• At Octagon, Bolton, until 23 June. Box office: 01204 520661.
