A NEW year beckons and record company boss Sam Phillips has plenty to be pleased about.

Or should have… for while he basks in the runaway success of Sun Studio’s golden boy Elvis Presley, two of his other protégés are about to jump ship, lured away by more lucrative deals.

No sir, this sure ain’t alright mama. For rockabilly cats Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash are about to desert the man who made it all possible.

This then is the sub plot to this story about the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, the music that for better or for worse has dominated our existence for the past six decades.

But before Phillips’ world collapses, four poor white boys from the rural American South will have an impromptu jam session. Someone switches on the tape… and the world will never be the same again.

This recording first came into the public domain 40 years ago. It consisted mainly of snatched conversations and random verses from gospel songs, all pretty unremarkable had it not been from the mouths of future megastars.

However, as fly-on-the-wall material, it’s all very illuminating. For example, the barely concealed acrimony between Carl Perkins (Matthew Wycliffe) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Martin Kaye) comes as a bit of a shock, especially as the religiously-driven Johnny Cash (Robbie Durham) finds himself caught in the middle.

These actor musicians are simply superb. Ross William Wild plays a marvellously mean and moody Presley, poised on the brink of global stardom, yet already riddled with doubts about the direction manager Colonel Parker is taking him.

As for the main man himself, Jason Donovan excels as Sam Phillips, the canny Memphis hustler whose discovery of a white boy who could sing like a black man revolutionised the world of entertainment.

Donovan is entirely convincing. You really feel the hurt when his boys break the bad news over Christmas drinks.

As for the music itself, no roll call of rock numbers should be necessary. Everyone knows them off by heart… but if you want to discover how it all started, then this dynamite of a show is an absolute must-see.

Million Dollar Quartet runs at Malvern Theatres until October 22 with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday.

John Phillpott