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SLIP on your winkle-pickers, back-comb your hair and head down to the Royal Exchange theatre Manchester for this rocking musical by Debbie Horsfield and Hereward Kaye.
Based on Horsfield's 1999 hit BBC series of the same name, the play is set in early 1960s Eccles, at the dawn of a new era for youth culture.
Twin sisters Arden and Ellie Brookes's lives are about to be changed irrevocably by the combined impact of sex, chips and rock and roll.
Street-wise Arden fully embraces the exciting opportunities that are opening up for her.
Liberated by the pill and driven by the glamour of the music scene, she has mapped out her life. Chic pad in Carnaby Street, E-type Jag and clubbing with George Best.
Ellie, however, has a passion for the romantic poets and her dreams are more ethereal. Circling the girls are a trio of wannabe rock stars called the Ice Cubes.
Just as it appears that Ellie will settle for a safe life married to the fish and chip magnate Norman Kershaw, while Arden seems destined to be an abandoned single mum, the girls grab the chance to flee to London with the Ice Cubes. Can their new lives give them the fame, fortune and happiness that they all crave?
Horsfield's play is, at heart, a traditional love story. It unfolds through song and dance and has the structure of a classic musical.
It is played with great gusto and verve by the excellent ensemble of actors, singers and dancers and is backed by a marvellous sextet of musicians perched in the gods.
Elaine Glover as Arden and Emma Williams as Ellie give wonderful performances as the sassy twins and really belt out their tunes.
The girls' mother Irma is portrayed with great sympathy by Tracie Bennett, whose hard exterior slowly dissolves to reveal a scarred and vulnerable woman who is struggling to come to terms with a long held secret.
The Ice Cubes, played by Ben Barnes, Ben Sutherland and Dean Stobbart, wouldn't look out of place in some of the rock venues around Manchester.
The whole production is handled with great skill by debut director Jonathan Moore, who keeps the whole show rollicking along.
If you like musicals - or even if you don't - this is a really good night's entertainment and is a real antidote to the nauseating musicals of Lloyd Webber, which seem to dominate the theatres.
Plays until August 6. Box office: (0161) 833-9833.
MIKE PARKER
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