TOURS AND MAJOR PRODUCTIONS

London
U.K. Tours
Broadway
U.S. Tours
Chicago
Philadelphia
San Francisco / Las Vegas /
Los Angeles
Reno
Canada
Toronto
British Columbia
Hamburg
Essen
Germany
Australia
Sydney
New Zealand
South Africa
Sweden
The Netherlands
Norway
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Ireland
Japan
Singapore

Total performances to 2024: 22,124

Number of people up and dancing at the end…
22,979,566

• Since opening at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, in August 1989, Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story has played 614 weeks (4,900 performances) on tour in the UK, and 728 weeks (5,822 performances) in London’s West End – for a total of 10,722 UK performances!
• Buddy ran in the West End for over 14 years – playing the Victoria Palace, Strand/Novello, and Duchess Theatres – making it one of the longest-running shows in London theatre history!
  
• Buddy became the first West End production to tour the UK while still playing in the West End in 1991. It set a record of 243 weeks of continuous touring, or four years 35 weeks on the road!
  
• Buddy has been staged across five continents, including in London and the UK; Broadway and across the USA including Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Reno; Toronto, British Columbia and throughout Canada; Hamburg, Essen and Germany; Sydney and Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan and Singapore!
  
• In Germany, the Stage Theater im Hafen in Hamburg was built on land next to the river Elbe especially for Buddy, where the show played for seven years between 1994 and 2001!
  
• The show’s first Australian tour played Sydney’s Theatre Royal for 36 weeks before continuing throughout Australia for a further 60 weeks! 
• In total our Buddy Holly’s have sung 20 songs 271,666 times!
  
• Since Buddy first began there have been 27 actors playing the title role of Buddy in the West End, on tour in the UK and on Broadway: Paul Hipp, Billy Geraghty, Joe Warren Davis, Ken Triwush, Steve Gray, Chip Esten, Joe Lutton, Alex Bourne, Martin Fisher, Angus MacGregor, John Sheridon, Craig Urbani, Kevin Pallister, Robert Burke Warren, Klaus White, Van Zeiler, Reuven Gershon, Edward Handoll, Elliot Harper, Dean Elliott, Matthew Wycliffe, Glen Joseph, Oliver Seymour Marsh, Roger Rowley, Alex Fobbester, Christopher Weeks, and AJ Jenks
• Paul Hipp, who played Buddy Holly in both the West End and on Broadway, was nominated for a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award and a Laurence Olivier Award, all in the category of Best Actor. He won the Theatre World Award!
• 3,338 pairs of trousers have been used and replaced – due to Buddy knee sliding across stages throughout the world – and 434 pairs of glasses!
• 189,000 guitar strings have been replaced (93 miles) and over 214,000 plectrums used!
• Throughout the world 14 couples have met and married while working in the company and there have been 28 Buddy babies! 
  

Buddy’s mum said “Charles Hardin was just too long a name for such a little boy”, so nicknamed him ‘Buddy’

Buddy Holly’s first instrument was the piano

Hank Williams was Buddy Holly’s earliest musical influence

The oldest known recording of Buddy is from about 1949, singing ‘My Two Timin’ Woman’ at around the age of 13, before his voice broke!

Buddy and his best friend Bob Montgomery opened for Elvis Presley in February 1955, at the Fair Park Coliseum in Lubbock, Buddy borrowing Presley’s guitar for the show

Buddy’s professional music career lasted just over three years, but he left behind almost 200 recordings made during that span

The original Crickets were Buddy Holly (lead guitar and vocals), Jerry Allison (drums), Niki Sullivan (rhythm guitar), and Joe Mauldin (bass) – their first hit was ‘That’ll Be The Day’

Buddy and the Crickets wrote most of their own material, which was unique at the time. Before Buddy, pop music performance and song-writing were mostly separate endeavours, where composers wrote songs and performers recorded and played them in concert

Buddy and the Crickets played on Ed Sullivan’s popular variety show twice, but refused to appear a third time due to a previous disagreement with Sullivan about what they could play

Buddy used a loan from his brother Larry to buy a $600 Fender Stratocaster, which he would use on his records and in concerts

Buddy recorded seven songs that Elvis Presley also recorded, including ‘Ready Teddy’, ‘Rip It Up’ and ‘Bo Diddley’

Buddy and the Crickets toured Hawaii, Australia and England in early 1958 – the tour of England in March was compered by Des O’Connor

Paul McCartney watched Buddy at home in Liverpool on TV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium to find out exactly which chords he used

The Crickets appeared on the 100th show of Sunday Night at the London Palladium – Bob Hope was top of the bill

Paul McCartney once said: “If it weren’t for the Crickets, there wouldn’t be any Beatles”

The ‘Chirping’ Crickets was the only group LP with Buddy to be issued in his lifetime. The iconic cover photo was somewhat hurriedly taken on a theatre roof in Brooklyn, before a concert

Buddy played his last concert at the Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2nd, 1959, along with fellow rock & roll stars Ritchie Valens and J.P. ‘the Big Bopper’ Richardson

Legendary country superstar Waylon Jennings had his first record produced by Buddy Holly

According to the song credits on ‘Not Fade Away’ and ‘Baby I Don’t Care’ Jerry Allison’s instrument was the ‘cardboard box’! On ‘Everyday’ he is credited with ‘knee slapping’!

One of Buddy’s most famous hits, ‘Peggy Sue’, was originally called ‘Cindy Lou’, but he changed it at the request of Jerry Allison, who wanted the song to be named after his girlfriend

Buddy proposed to Maria Elena Santiago on their first date – they were married just weeks later on August 15th, 1958, in a private ceremony in the Holley’s house in Lubbock

The Quarrymen (later to become The Beatles) covered ‘That'll Be The Day’ in their first recording. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Stuart Sutcliffe (the Beatles’ original bass guitarist) were all huge Buddy Holly fans, and came up with the name The Beatles in homage to Buddy’s band the Crickets

Buddy’s ‘Not Fade Away’ was covered by the Rolling Stones in 1964, and became the band’s first top 10 hit in Britain, reaching number three

Two major films have been made about Buddy Holly; Gary Busey received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Buddy in The Buddy Holly Story in 1979, then in 1987 lifelong fan Paul McCartney narrated The Real Buddy Holly Story documentary

Don McLean’s 1971 classic ‘American Pie’ is all about the fateful plane crash which claimed the lives of Buddy, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson. In the third verse McLean sings, “I can’t remember if I cried, when I read about his widowed bride.” The bride was Maria Elena Holly (née Santiago)

Waylon Jennings gave the Big Bopper his seat on the plane, while Ritchie Valens beat Tommy Allsup in a coin toss for a seat – Ritchie called heads and won

On 1st July 1976 Paul McCartney purchased the rights to Buddy Holly’s entire song catalogue

In 1980 the citizens of Lubbock, Texas, Buddy’s home town, unveiled a heroic bronze statue of their most famous son

Rolling Stone magazine ranked Buddy 13th in its list of ‘100 Greatest Artists of All-Time’ in 2011 — not bad considering Buddy died at the age of just 22!

The musical Buddy has to date run in London’s West End for nearly 15 years. Opening in October 1989, it has played at the Victoria Palace, Strand (now Novello), and Duchess Theatres. Generations of reviewers, as well as countless theatregoers and music lovers, have been stunned by the show, calling it ‘a cynic-busting, exuberant delight’, summed up nicely by The Sun: ‘It’s Buddy brilliant!’