MUSICAL THEATRE: The Buddy Holly Story at Worthing Connaught Theatre

You’ve just got to accept that every one stepping into the big Buddy Holly shoes and looking through his trademark specs will do it to some extent in their own way.

“There has got to be a little bit of you in it otherwise people just won’t believe,” says Glen, who plays Holly in The Buddy Holly Story at Worthing’s Connaught Theatre from Monday-Saturday, March 7-12.

“You can do a Les Mis or a We Will Rock You and play fictional characters, but I am loathe to try to do a Stars in Their Eyes performance of someone that you could never get absolutely right.”

Glen auditioned to play Buddy when he was straight out of drama school: “I was very, very green. I got down to the last two, but didn’t get it. But then I was invited back for the UK tour in 2008 and went on as Buddy in that.”

The current show is set during the three years in which Buddy became the world’s top recording artiste and features over 20 of Buddy’s greatest hits including Peggy Sue, That’ll Be the Day, Oh Boy!,

Rave On, Heartbeat and Raining in My Heart.

“Buddy has always had great significance in my family.

“He was my dad’s favourite. Buddy was just something that I grew up with.

“I think my father was remembering being at boarding school and feeling very, very lonely and not enjoying it at all. It was Buddy’s music that got him through it.

“At the time, Buddy was churning out single after single.

“In 18 months, he had something like six what we would call now smash hits. It was incredible.”