I don't think I've ever been in such a stupendous standing ovation at the New Vic. The  cast of ten actor/musicians utterly deserved their collective accolade but there was something more going on.
The full house was also applauding the community in which they lived, their own long lost youth and the enormous achievements of their favourite theatre over the past 40 years (and even earlier at The Old Vic).   

This is at least the seventh production of Good Golly Miss Molly, and actor Richard Hague has been in all of them - originally as a rock and roll star but now, due to the passage of time, he's playing granddad. His hilarious drunken singing routine is expertly observed.

It all started in 1989 with the melding of the minds of the New Vic's original artistic director Peter Cheeseman and his old employee - and skiffle group member, Bob Eaton. The result was a new rock and roll musical (at a time when they were innovative) drawing upon the stories of Tunstall folk. I was at the first night 37 years ago and it was terribly exciting, ground-breaking stuff. For a start, the actors played (and swapped) all of the instruments themselves, performing 20 songs in total. 

So how does it stand up four decades later? Well, by today's standards the plot is paper thin. The storylines are terribly transient and it does feel dated. That aside, it is now a deeply infectious, living, kicking museum piece, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

It's the story of the loves and hopes of a whole generation of Stoke folk sandwiched between the premierships of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Eaton ranges widely over subjects such as domestic abuse, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, AIDS, the Miner's strike and socialist slogans. All are dealt with succinctly in snap-shot, flashback fashion. The underlying thread - which only really emerges in the second half, is a campaign against slum clearance and the consequent destruction of a whole community.

We are in the neighbourhood welfare hall, with its cruddy carpet and linoleum stage. Local heroes Ronnie Angel and the Devils are to be roped in to do a fundraising concert for the campaign. In a series of corny musical coincidences, Johnny Angel was a 1962 Billboard number one hit by Shelley Fabares - so it didn't take much for Eaton to adapt it for his show.

All the song's titles seem to be crowbarred into the story somehow and it's great fun to spot them. There are innumerable cameo scenes where Eaton draws upon his own (and everyone elses) childhood. Three snotty kids with tennis rackets re-enact The Shadows' walk in the playground. A heavy authoritarian headmaster throws a teeny bopper's record collection in the bin and tears up her glossy pop magazine. Sound familiar?

There are deeply touching moments when a runaway girl finds a pile of missing letters from home and when the fans' sex idol Ronnie (now played perfectly by Matthew Ganley) confesses he's gay. All of this hits the spot.

The music is superb and musical director Sayan Kent surprises us with a variety of styles. There's a loud and proud ten-piece rock band of course, with a four-strong brass section, but the songs are often stripped back to a single guitar and close harmonies, or even no instruments at all. Hugely effective is Molly's decision to leave Stoke to The Animals song We Got To Get Out of This Place. It's a big moment, but Kent simply scores the familiar, driving bass-line below the vocals - and it sounds so fresh.

Shirley Darroch's Molly is outstanding. She gets the teenage traumas just right, earns plenty of laughs, plays trumpet and, after an exhausting night, sings and jives her way through a grand finale of Dancing In The Street.

Georgina Field is a great character actor, playing both the nosy neighbour and the disillusioned young Lucille (cue another Little Richard hit). But this really, really is an ensemble play with every actor taking on endless rolls and everybody playing at least one instrument. You can't fault them.

Humour falls out of the show - from the obligatory Biddulph gag to the old touring musicians' joke about the difference between roadies and groupies. Roadies hump the gear...

Good Golly Miss Molly is an absolutely a feel good night, even if you've never heard of Stoke.   

Five stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at the New Vic Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, on Wednesday 8 April. Good Golly Miss Molly continues to show at the venue until Saturday 2 May