That’ll be the Day offers night of nostalgia and comedy in Eastbourne

It’s a show that’s been going for not so very far off 40 years now, a landmark which director, producer and lead vocalist Trevor Payne is determined to reach. Packed with iconic songs from the 50s to the 80s and comedy skits, the music is his kind of music in a show which has delighted endlessly down the decades.

“I was a Beatles man. When I started in music, leaving school, The Beatles had just broken out, and having a band at that time was a time when you could make a living from it. I just went on from there and it took me all over the world before I even started That’ll Be The Day. It’s what they call the butterfly effect, isn't it, how things happen. I was talking to my lead guitar player who is a mere 38 years old and I realised he was just a little baby when That’ll Be The Day started. It's really weird how things work out.”

But the fact is that everything in life was effectively preparing Trevor for the show.

“I knew all the tracks that were popular at the time. I would support all the big bands when they came down to the pier in Worthing (the town in which Trevor grew up) and then when I could see that the pop business was going into disco, I realised I had to move into doing something else and so we moved into doing cabaret.

"We started doing comedy and impersonations and then the cabaret clubs disappeared and so myself and the two girls went off all around the world, playing everywhere. And then we came back and were invited to join a rock ‘n’ roll show but I said to the guy ‘Let me have a go at producing and directing and let’s make it into a much more integrated show.’”

From that That’ll Be The Day emerged: “It's really an extension of the old comedy show bands. But we were always much more musical and we just knew how it should be played. We started off in clubs but Butlins was our big success. We would play there. We would do a 50s and 60s night one day and then would have us back later in the week to do a 70s and 80s night. That gave us encouragement to go full time, and the stuff that we did was just a breeding ground for the comedy.

"We did that until the early 90s and then we started to move into theatres.”