Chris Weeks is Buddy Holly as The Buddy Holly Story hits the road in its 34th year.
Dates include Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, Sept 19-23; and The Hawth, Crawley, October 13-14.
Dates include Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, Sept 19-23; and The Hawth, Crawley, October 13-14.
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00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil here at
00:05 Group Arts, editor for Sussex Newspapers. Fabulous to be speaking to Chris Weeks,
00:08 aka Buddy Holly. You are on the road as the Great Man. Now how on earth do you approach
00:14 someone who is so iconic, who meant so much to so many people? How do you do it?
00:20 It's a difficult thing. I mean, he means an awful lot to me as well. You know, I've grown
00:26 up with the music from the show and from the Great Man himself. But essentially, I think you just have
00:32 to approach him as a human being, a remarkable human being, absolutely. Someone who was incredibly
00:38 driven, incredibly talented, very forward thinking, but was very warm-hearted, very kind,
00:45 very open, very generous, all of these things. He lived life to the full. And so whenever you
00:50 step onto the stage, I just, you know, the work that I've done is to breathe all of these things
00:56 in, to put them all into the melting pot, you know, all the ingredients that go into sort of
01:01 the cake, and then you put it in the oven, you see what comes out the other side. And I don't
01:04 try and guide it too much. It's sort of like, you just try and live in the moment, really.
01:08 Absolutely. And you're saying a fascinating thing, that obviously you feel the reverence for the
01:12 Buddy Holly himself, but you can't take that reverence onto the stage. What do you mean by that?
01:17 Well, if you're trying to play an icon, I think it would just come off as false,
01:23 or it would come off as a tribute, you know, and we're not a tribute show. It's easy to sort of
01:27 get confused because you think, "Oh, well, you're paying tributes, Buddy." Yeah, of course we are.
01:31 But we're recreating moments on the stage, you know, as they would have happened. We're doing
01:37 it organically. There's nothing on sort of backing tracks or on clip tracks like musical theatre
01:41 shows use. Everything that you hear is created live in the room. And so we're, essentially,
01:47 we pay homage to Buddy by trying to do it all honestly and authentically and organically on
01:52 the stage. There's nothing fake about it at all. And you must get fantastic response from audiences
01:57 wherever you go with this show. We do. We're very lucky. I think there's no feeling quite like it
02:02 when you get to the end of Buddy and you think, "Oh, wow. I mean, this is the top of the tree."
02:07 You know, you're a rock and roll star and there's nothing like it. No wonder they loved it so much.
02:11 It's amazing. And absolutely. And as we were starting to say just now, you see his influence
02:16 filtering through into so many people that followed, hadn't you? It's no exaggeration,
02:20 really, to change music, isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you see it right up to the
02:24 present day. I mean, look at Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran as an innovator, as a songwriter,
02:27 as a guitar man. The thread goes back to Buddy. It's not an accident. It is. It is. He played
02:33 the guitar. He was the leader of his outfit of the crickets. He was a songwriter. He was a producer.
02:38 He was the vocalist. And then you see it go through the Beatles and all the way down.
02:42 It started with Buddy in a big way, the original sort of singer-songwriter.
02:48 Sounds fantastic. And it's been going as a show for 34 years. I hadn't realised it.
02:53 34 years. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Which says it all about the regard he still held in,
02:59 doesn't it? I think the show has played a big part in that. You know, I think
03:03 Buddy was an amazing person and the people who knew about him loved him and respected him. But
03:09 there's always the chance that, I mean, think about someone like Little Richard, you know,
03:12 he's not on sort of everyone's lips. And you think about the songs that he wrote and the songs that
03:17 he sang. But he's never had sort of the treatment that Buddy's had in terms of being remembered.
03:21 The show revitalised, I think, a lot of interest in Buddy. And now they sort of go hand in hand.
03:27 And it must be a daunting thing to be incarnating him now.
03:31 It is. It's daunting, but it's incredibly rewarding. And yeah, it's a privilege. I've
03:39 been thinking this, just especially this last week. It's a privileged position that we're in.
03:44 AJ, who shares the role with me and myself, it's amazing. You know, you can't,
03:49 you couldn't put a price on it. It's amazing. Perfect. Well, really lovely to speak to you.
03:54 Good luck with the rest of the tour. And those Crawley gates are in October, aren't they?
03:58 Yes. Yeah. It's a little way off. Get those tickets in there. They've already started selling.
04:03 Fantastic. Lovely to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you.