@ Edinburgh Playhouse, until Sat 25 Jul 2015 and
@ King’s Theatre, Glasgow, from Mon 3 Aug to Sat 8 Aug 2015

As jukebox musicals go Love Me Tender has one main advantage: the songs of Elvis Presley; and one major disadvantage: the songs of Elvis Presley. The King put his stamp on his singles so forcefully and irrevocably that few other artists have dared to attempt to do covers. The Pet Shop Boys’ Suspicious Minds is one of the braver, better examples.

Presley’s soulful, southern twang and powerful, slightly tongue-in-cheek delivery could make gold out of the most unpromising material (Wooden Heart, anyone?). But could a musical of Elvis hits work and give these ancient rock’n’roll numbers a fresh feel? Elvis songs wrapped around a thudding boy-meets-girl plot could spell disaster. Fortunately that’s precisely what we don’t get from the producers of the sassy Hairspray. LMT is a perfectly-realised show that hitches its star to the King and thrillingly reboots his classic songs into the bargain. What the world doesn’t need in another Elvis impersonator.

The combination of superb, gut-busting singing and great dancing and choreography (from uber-talented director/choreographer Karen Bruce) gives the whole enterprise a va-va-voom Presley would be proud of. The jokey plot, a loose take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, with mistaken identities and girls dressed as boys, is set in a small-town-no-one’s-ever-heard-of-in-the-middle-of-nowhere (by way of Norman Rockwell). When roustabout Chad (hip-swivelling belter Ben Lewis) descends Jesus-like from his motorcycle, and lays on hands to make the faulty jukebox come to life, he helps the locals – who have lost the ability to love (thanks to the Mamie Eisenhower Decency Act) – rediscover “public necking” and much else.

None of this concoction should work. But it does, splendidly. I can forgive Chad falling for the girl mechanic Natalie (a wonderful Laura Tebbutt) only when she dresses as a boy; I can forgive the interracial love affairs that seem improbably unproblematic for the pre-civil rights South; I can even forgive the pulsing neon hearts of the old tunnel of love (straight out of an Archies comic). Shaun Williamson is Natalie’s dad who really loves barkeep Sylvia, played by show-stealer Mica Paris. If only we’d seen more of her.

‘Music is a sort of magic,’ says Chad ‘that can move your spirit,’ and Ms Paris certainly did that. Chad, the street philosopher and Presley’s ghost, says at one point, ‘close your eyes and imagine yourself happy.’ You don’t need to close your eyes – just go see Love Me Tender!