Review: Billy Fury Meets Elvis at the Sheppey Little Theatre, Sheerness
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This was such a joyous show. Two chaps with excellent singing voices having the time of their lives on stage performing hits from Elvis, Billy Fury and others.
Almost immediately, the audience was dancing in the aisles. It’s what a good night at the theatre is all about.
But let’s put this in perspective.
Did British rock god Billy Fury ever actually meet Elvis?
Well, yes, he did. Sixty-four years ago, on Wednesday, May 16, 1962, he turned up in Hollywood where The King was filming Girls! Girls! Girls! at the Paramount studios.
During the meeting, Liverpudlian Billy presented Elvis with two silver discs for sales of Rock-a-Hula Baby and Wild in the Country.
By all accounts the pair didn’t say much. Despite being famous singers, both were, deep down, quite shy. Besides, Elvis was busy making a movie.
But what if they had struck up a friendship and, well, decided to play together? This, I suspect, could have been the result.
So why wasn’t more made of this in the show at the Sheppey Little Theatre on Saturday (May 30)?
Admittedly, there was a shaky start as the pair were delayed by last-minute gremlins with their sound system. But there was no introduction and no explanation of why they were there.
Perhaps everyone else in the audience already knew? But I was initially kept in the dark until a quick, and then an exhaustive, search with Mr Google filled in the blanks.
This show could have reached another level with patter explaining who did what from the annuls of rock history.  In real life, the pair actually recorded each others’ songs. And, poignantly, both died at the tragically young age of 42.
Elvis collapsed on the loo of his home Gracelands from exhaustion and drugs on August 16, 1977.
Billy, born Ronald Wycherley, died from a long-standing heart defect brought on by childhood rheumatic fever, on January 28, 1983, following a recording session in London.
But enough of the history lessons.
What the audience got for their £18 tickets was a feel-good night-out packed with favourite songs from the 50s and 60s including Three Steps To Heaven by Eddie Cochrane (who died aged 21 in Bath after a car crash on Billy’s 20th birthday. Sorry, no more lessons).
There was Marty Wild’s Teenager In Love, Billy’s I Can Help, Jealousy and Halfway To Paradise and Elvis’s Teddy Bear, All Shook Up, Return To Sender, The Wonder of You and the brilliant American Trilogy.
The lads obviously enjoyed themselves so much they ended up with two finales, Viva Las Vegas and Johnny B Goode.
They had dressed the part, too, with Billy’s early tight, black leather trousers making way for a superbly fitted grey Italian suit and Elvis switching from a bright red shirt in first half to a sparkling gold lame jacket for the second.
Then it was a long drive back home to Great Yarmouth for the implausibly tanned Ian Brady as Elvis and the lanky Alan Wilcox as the moody Billy.
It was the third time they had performed at the Little Theatre and they will be back in the autumn (December 5 for the Golden Oldies Rock ‘n’ Roll Show).
Before that, Billy will be making a solo return to Sheppey at Leysdown’s Paradise Club on June 27 – the night of England’s final qualifier for the World Cup. Halfway to Paradise?
John Nurden
