Manchester, Runs until Saturday.

BY the end of this entertaining evening, the bald, the grey and the portly were bopping and jigging about with a refreshing lack of inhibition.

Without children and grandchildren around to be embarrassed by their antics, they simply made sure they had a good time.

The formula cannot fail -- young musicians and performers pretend to be the stars of 40 years ago in order to attract mature people with nostalgic memories of the days when they were as fresh and vital as rock 'n' roll itself.

It helps if the music and the images are good enough to stand the test of time, and there is no problem here as we find four dead legends on one bill -- Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison.

Wonderful songs such as Jail House Rock, Only The Lonely, True Love Ways and Summertime Blues evoke warm feelings and prompt the thought that they will no doubt be blaring from the speakers in care homes throughout the land in another 20 years' time. Crock 'n' Roll, perhaps.

In the meantime, this show is well served by its stars -- Rebel Dean (Elvis), Peter Howarth (Orbison), Martin Fisher (Holly), and Kludo White (Cochran).

I found the Elvis and Eddie Cochran selections particularly entertaining as their impersonators captured something of the teen idol spirit which has endured through succeeding pop generations ever since.

But one or two details jarred for the purists, including the sight of Buddy Holly performing Chuck Berry's famous duck walk, and guitarists, supposedly from a different era, trying out a few Shadows' stage steps.

The musicians, led by musical director James Compton, kept things moving along nicely, but the sound seemed a little distorted here and there, and the intrusive bass was more in keeping with the modern era than the one being portrayed. ALAN CALVERT

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.