There is only one real star at the Theatre Royal this week and that is the music.

Sure, the players are all excellent but it's the music that really counts in Heaven Can Wait, a tribute to the days when rock 'n' roll still had its innocence.

The show is centred on the early hours of February 3 1959, The Day The Music Died.

At about 1am, a small plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper and pilot Roger Peterson crashed on a storm-swept flight from Mason City, Iowa, to Fargo in North Dakota, killing everyone on board.

Writers David Cosgrove and Simon Hart open their play during that flight and continue it when the quartet reach Limbo and meet a young lady named Stella.

The show plays out by Stella helping them let go of their lives by revealing their demons, hopes and pain and giving us some of the great music they, and others, made for us along the way.

It is a play that is nicely light and dark and it allows the music to relieve us of any pain we may feel about their deaths.

There are a few bad taste jokes along the way, the crash is followed by Frank Sinatra singing Come Fly With Me and there is the inevitable crack about dying young selling records and turning showbiz folk into legends.

But overall, this show is an affectionate tribute to three rock 'n' rollers whose songs we still play and still love.

In Anthony Fletcher, Michael Cuckson and Mark Pearce, as Buddy, Ritchie and The Big Bopper respectively, we have three good rock 'n' rollers to give us the music.

Oh Boy, At The Hop, Oh Donna, Three Steps To Heaven, Roll Over Beethoven, Chantilly Lace, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, Peggy Sue and all the other great numbers are delivered with consummate ease and tremendous enthusiasm.

More particularly, Cameron Gordon, the pilot, turns out to be not only a great drummer but a sure hand with the guitar, too.

Jenni Winter's Stella may have a most irritating Texan accent but she is a deft little rock 'n' roll pianist and a great mover.

Stella is the brilliant device used to prise open these rockers' lives.

From here, we learn something of their background. The Big Bopper was a redneck, racist bigot. Valens was a womaniser and Holly more turned on by music and money than his family.

Heaven Can Wait has a high feel-good factor and you will get to your feet and bop at least a bit to some of the most joyous music of the 20th Century.

Thank goodness the music didn't die on that fateful day.

For tickets, call 01273 328488.