@ Edinburgh Playhouse, on Mon 7 Mar 2016
To watch The Billy Fury Story is to watch as an era slowly fades before your eyes. Unlike Elvis nights, or 60s jukebox musicals, where musical familiarity has been handed down the generations, Fury’s flame flickers sadly and gradually out. There are banks of empty seats in the house tonight – nothing to do with what’s on stage, nor the fact this show has done the rounds, more to do with old age thinning out the ranks of Fury fans, without young blood to plug the gaps.
If that sounds melancholy, it’s right to – melancholy was never far away from this man’s life. Billy Fury (born William Furious in Liverpool in 1940) was Britain’s Elvis. (Yeah, yeah, pipe down, Cliff.) Like Presley, Fury was matinee handsome. His bequiffed profile is emblematic of that happy, optimistic Britain, heady on the first rush of teenage rebellion and with the gates of social mobility thrown momentarily open. Like Presley, Fury also died young, having been plagued by poor health. Reading way too much symbolism into it, their early deaths sandwich the rise to power of Reagan and Thatcher. The rebel dream dying as the evil empire re-asserts itself. But enough! The music…
The show is billed as Halfway To Paradise: The Billy Fury Story, as if the man only had one song. This is mis-selling. Fury had plenty of tunes, and many are ripe for reappraisal. The Last Shadow Puppets have already done a killer Wondrous Place. Devil or Angel could be boy-banded up for a talent show audition. And Hawley, it goes without saying, would wring every last tear out of When Will You Say I Love You?
Performing the songs are the 70s incarnation of Fury’s band, the Tornados, with Colin Gold, who got the call up after a turn as Fury on Stars In Their Eyes, on vocals. Gold’s voice is resonant, his greying quiff remarkable, and he seems genuinely grateful at the twenty year career he’s sustained off the back of that TV appearance. These Tornados are no slouches either. Charlie Elston’s ivory tinkling is worth a concert in its own right – boogie-woogie, pop-classical, or dirty Hammond licks – he’s got the moves. Chris and John Raynor and Graham Wyvill could let rip some pure rock ‘n’ roll too, although it’d be nice if John Raynor could give Paul Weller his hair back.
The reality of ageing bones is having to rely on a video backdrop to fill the Playhouse stage rather than hip-shaking on-stage antics. It makes a workable solution, even if a smaller venue would be preferable. Someone needs to chuck a few hundred quid at updating the graphics though. Live footage, especially of Fury himself is very welcome. WordArt instructions to clap and sing less so.
It’d be odd for a new generation to take Billy Fury to their bosom when they have their own idols. He seems destined to become a rock ‘n’ roll curio. None of that would be the fault of these performers though. They pay the bequiffed one great homage.