Brand new stage show Summer Holiday has been called the feelgood musical of 2018. Promising to bring ‘music, fun and laughter to the stage’, the show tells the story of Don and his fellow London Transport mechanics as they journey together in a red double-decker bus through Paris, the Alps, Italy and Greece.
Along the way, they pick up a female singing group and a young American pop star. The latter is on the run, not only from a domineering mother but also from her own agent, Jerry, who’s played in the show by Bobby Crush.
“I’m really enjoying the role,” says Bobby. “I play the part very cockney. I’m going back to my roots, really - I’m originally from the East End of London. Jerry wears the most appalling wig - it’s shocking! It’s like a dead animal perched on my forehead. It’s deliberately bad; he thinks that no one notices.”
Packed full of classic Cliff Richard hits, including Summer Holiday, In The Country, Move It and Bachelor Boy, as well as bundles of energy and lots of laughs, the show unashamedly recalls a bygone era. “It’s lovely because it’s from a much more innocent age than the one we’re in now. There are no swear words, there’s the obligatory happy ending and everyone’s having a lovely time. There’s no message in it - it’s just pure entertainment.
“We’re keeping all of the original music. There’s the addition of some Cliff hits that weren’t actually in the movie, like The Young Ones and The Next Time, so it’s a big treat for Cliff fans. In terms of the storyline, I think those who have a happy memory of the film won’t be disappointed by what’s happening in the musical. All of the most important bits remain in it - including, of course, the full-size London double-decker bus.”
Starring alongside Bobby, and taking the Cliff role of Don, is Ray Quinn. Having first risen to prominence in Channel Four’s Brookside, Quinn achieved more public recognition after finishing second to Leona Lewis in the 2006 series of The X Factor. In 2009 he won the fourth series of Dancing On Ice. Ray’s debut album, Doing It My Way, entered the charts at number one and quickly achieved platinum status. His more recent theatre credits include The Wedding Singer, Legally Blonde and Dirty Dancing.
“Ray will be a revelation when people see him in this role,” says Bobby. “He’s sticking very closely to the template of Don in the film, and he’s a good little dancer. We get on really well; he’s a really nice guy. They’re all really great.”
At sixty-four, Bobby is the oldest member of the Summer Holiday cast, but he’s certainly lost none of his enthusiasm for working. He recently appeared in the ITV series Last Laugh In Vegas. The show followed eight well-known variety performers from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s - including Anita Harris, Su Pollard, Bernie Clifton and Jess Conrad - as they went on a two-week trip to Las Vegas. Whilst living in a house together, they explored the city and prepared for a one-night-only variety performance.
“I think it was on the back of having been in Last Laugh In Vegas that the Summer Holiday producers decided I’d be a suitable Jerry. It was hard work; there were a lot of late nights and a lot of early starts, but on the final show we all did our own thing and the audience reaction was just stupendous. It’s something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to do some brilliant work, and to work with some terrific people. I’ve done three seasons at the London Palladium and all of that, but to be able to say in your mid-60s that you’ve just been given the opportunity to work in Las Vegas, and been given a standing ovation - that was just amazing! It was so unusual and so unexpected. It’s something that I will look back on in the future as a career highlight.
“There’s talk that there’s going to be a live tour at some point, featuring everybody who took part in the show - which is one of the reasons why I've only signed for the first eight weeks of the Summer Holiday tour. It’s great to have all these opportunities suddenly arrive out of nowhere. My agent is negotiating panto at the moment too, so it looks like I'm going to have a very busy year!”
Bobby believes he was always destined to be a performer. “I’d been playing the piano since I was four years old. I started playing in front of the public at the age of 12, in amateur dramatics and concert parties. Then I started playing in pubs when I was 15 or 16, and turned pro at 18. When anybody asked me, from a very, very early age, what I would end up doing, I always said I would be on the stage.”
Bobby first came to public attention in 1972, after six winning appearances in the Hughie Green talent show, Opportunity Knocks. He was 18 at the time. “My memories of my teenage years and my early 20s are the inside of TV studios and hotel rooms. I wasn’t really given the opportunity to develop in terms of my personal life because everything was geared towards my professional life. I shouldn’t complain because it was what I wanted, or what I thought I wanted at the time, but I think it should have been tempered with a little bit more time given over to my emotional development. It was a very heavy schedule for me in those early years, just dancing from one thing to another. I was also very cosseted by my parents. At the time, my father gave up his job to go out on the road with me. He drove me to all my gigs and arranged the hotels etc, so it meant that all I had to think about was performing and putting on a good show. Part of that was great because it was my dad and he had my best interests at heart. But also, it’s your dad, and you’re spending all your time with your dad when really you should be out with mates and having fun and having relationships and what have you. That never really happened for me until I got into my mid-20s. I was quite a late developer because I was shielded.”
Bobby came out publicly as gay in an interview with Gay Times in 2004, at the age of 50. “The journalist I was speaking to about a Liberace show I was doing in London knew that I was gay. He said that if I would like to use that occasion to come out, then they’d give me a three-page spread, and I thought, what’s not to love about that? It was great publicity for the show, too. I’d always planned to come out in an autobiography, but I thought, let’s do it now and get it all done and dusted. One reason it took until I was 50 was the fact that nobody had actually asked me straight out. If they had, I would’ve bitten the bullet and been truthful. Another reason was that in the early ’70s, if you’d actually spoken openly about those things, it had the potential to finish your career.
“Opinions are much more relaxed now. We have openly gay pop stars and gay storylines in soap operas. All of that was a million miles away in 1972. Thank god that people have become a little bit more savvy and relaxed about these things! My nieces, who are now in their early 20s, have always known that they’ve got a gay uncle, and they’ve just shrugged it off. The younger generation seem to think that way, whereas for my generation it was a whole different ball game.”
Summer Holiday runs at the New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, from 12 to 16 June & Regent Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent from 2 to 6 October.
Brand new stage show Summer Holiday has been called the feelgood musical of 2018. Promising to bring ‘music, fun and laughter to the stage’, the show tells the story of Don and his fellow London Transport mechanics as they journey together in a red double-decker bus through Paris, the Alps, Italy and Greece.
Along the way, they pick up a female singing group and a young American pop star. The latter is on the run, not only from a domineering mother but also from her own agent, Jerry, who’s played in the show by Bobby Crush.
“I’m really enjoying the role,” says Bobby. “I play the part very cockney. I’m going back to my roots, really - I’m originally from the East End of London. Jerry wears the most appalling wig - it’s shocking! It’s like a dead animal perched on my forehead. It’s deliberately bad; he thinks that no one notices.”
Packed full of classic Cliff Richard hits, including Summer Holiday, In The Country, Move It and Bachelor Boy, as well as bundles of energy and lots of laughs, the show unashamedly recalls a bygone era. “It’s lovely because it’s from a much more innocent age than the one we’re in now. There are no swear words, there’s the obligatory happy ending and everyone’s having a lovely time. There’s no message in it - it’s just pure entertainment.
“We’re keeping all of the original music. There’s the addition of some Cliff hits that weren’t actually in the movie, like The Young Ones and The Next Time, so it’s a big treat for Cliff fans. In terms of the storyline, I think those who have a happy memory of the film won’t be disappointed by what’s happening in the musical. All of the most important bits remain in it - including, of course, the full-size London double-decker bus.”
Starring alongside Bobby, and taking the Cliff role of Don, is Ray Quinn. Having first risen to prominence in Channel Four’s Brookside, Quinn achieved more public recognition after finishing second to Leona Lewis in the 2006 series of The X Factor. In 2009 he won the fourth series of Dancing On Ice. Ray’s debut album, Doing It My Way, entered the charts at number one and quickly achieved platinum status. His more recent theatre credits include The Wedding Singer, Legally Blonde and Dirty Dancing.
“Ray will be a revelation when people see him in this role,” says Bobby. “He’s sticking very closely to the template of Don in the film, and he’s a good little dancer. We get on really well; he’s a really nice guy. They’re all really great.”
At sixty-four, Bobby is the oldest member of the Summer Holiday cast, but he’s certainly lost none of his enthusiasm for working. He recently appeared in the ITV series Last Laugh In Vegas. The show followed eight well-known variety performers from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s - including Anita Harris, Su Pollard, Bernie Clifton and Jess Conrad - as they went on a two-week trip to Las Vegas. Whilst living in a house together, they explored the city and prepared for a one-night-only variety performance.
“I think it was on the back of having been in Last Laugh In Vegas that the Summer Holiday producers decided I’d be a suitable Jerry. It was hard work; there were a lot of late nights and a lot of early starts, but on the final show we all did our own thing and the audience reaction was just stupendous. It’s something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to do some brilliant work, and to work with some terrific people. I’ve done three seasons at the London Palladium and all of that, but to be able to say in your mid-60s that you’ve just been given the opportunity to work in Las Vegas, and been given a standing ovation - that was just amazing! It was so unusual and so unexpected. It’s something that I will look back on in the future as a career highlight.
“There’s talk that there’s going to be a live tour at some point, featuring everybody who took part in the show - which is one of the reasons why I've only signed for the first eight weeks of the Summer Holiday tour. It’s great to have all these opportunities suddenly arrive out of nowhere. My agent is negotiating panto at the moment too, so it looks like I'm going to have a very busy year!”
Bobby believes he was always destined to be a performer. “I’d been playing the piano since I was four years old. I started playing in front of the public at the age of 12, in amateur dramatics and concert parties. Then I started playing in pubs when I was 15 or 16, and turned pro at 18. When anybody asked me, from a very, very early age, what I would end up doing, I always said I would be on the stage.”
Bobby first came to public attention in 1972, after six winning appearances in the Hughie Green talent show, Opportunity Knocks. He was 18 at the time. “My memories of my teenage years and my early 20s are the inside of TV studios and hotel rooms. I wasn’t really given the opportunity to develop in terms of my personal life because everything was geared towards my professional life. I shouldn’t complain because it was what I wanted, or what I thought I wanted at the time, but I think it should have been tempered with a little bit more time given over to my emotional development. It was a very heavy schedule for me in those early years, just dancing from one thing to another. I was also very cosseted by my parents. At the time, my father gave up his job to go out on the road with me. He drove me to all my gigs and arranged the hotels etc, so it meant that all I had to think about was performing and putting on a good show. Part of that was great because it was my dad and he had my best interests at heart. But also, it’s your dad, and you’re spending all your time with your dad when really you should be out with mates and having fun and having relationships and what have you. That never really happened for me until I got into my mid-20s. I was quite a late developer because I was shielded.”
Bobby came out publicly as gay in an interview with Gay Times in 2004, at the age of 50. “The journalist I was speaking to about a Liberace show I was doing in London knew that I was gay. He said that if I would like to use that occasion to come out, then they’d give me a three-page spread, and I thought, what’s not to love about that? It was great publicity for the show, too. I’d always planned to come out in an autobiography, but I thought, let’s do it now and get it all done and dusted. One reason it took until I was 50 was the fact that nobody had actually asked me straight out. If they had, I would’ve bitten the bullet and been truthful. Another reason was that in the early ’70s, if you’d actually spoken openly about those things, it had the potential to finish your career.
“Opinions are much more relaxed now. We have openly gay pop stars and gay storylines in soap operas. All of that was a million miles away in 1972. Thank god that people have become a little bit more savvy and relaxed about these things! My nieces, who are now in their early 20s, have always known that they’ve got a gay uncle, and they’ve just shrugged it off. The younger generation seem to think that way, whereas for my generation it was a whole different ball game.”
Summer Holiday runs at the New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, from 12 to 16 June & Regent Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent from 2 to 6 October.
By Lauren Foster